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cMakincj 
of  a 

(Marchioness 


Emily  Fox- Se  ton 


(Marchioness 


NEWY9RK 

FREDERICK  A.STQKES,  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  /par,  by 
The  Century   Company 

Copyright,  igoi,  by 
Mrs.  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett 

Copyright,  IQOI,  by 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company 


Published  September, 


University  Press,  Jobn  ffilson  and  Son 
Cambridge,  U.  S.  A. 


PS 
/2/ 
M28 


family  <jbz~cfe  ton 
Cora  Brooke 


<7ke  (Marquis  o/ 


arc/lioness 


HEN  Miss  Fox-Seton 
descended  from  the 
twopenny  bus  as  it 
drew  up,  she  gathered 
her  trim  tailor-made 
skirt  about  her  with  neatness  and  de- 
corum, being  well  used  to  getting  in  and 
out  of  twopenny  buses  and  to  making  her 
way  across  muddy  London  streets.  A 
woman  whose  tailor-made  suit  must  last 
two  or  three  years  soon  learns  how  to  pro- 
tect it  from  splashes,  and  how  to  aid  it  to 
retain  the  freshness  of  its  folds.  During  her 
I".] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
trudging  about  this  morning  in  the  wet, 
Emily  Fox-Seton  had  been  very  careful,  and, 
in  fact,  was  returning  to  Mortimer  Street  as 
unspotted  as  she  had  left  it.  She  had  been 
thinking  a  good  deal  about  her  dress — this 
particular  faithful  one  which  she  had  already 
worn  through  a  twelvemonth.  Skirts  had 
made  one  of  their  appalling  changes,  and  as 
she  walked  down  Regent  Street  and  Bond 
Street  she  had  stopped  at  the  windows  of 
more  than  one  shop  bearing  the  sign  u  Ladies' 
Tailor  and  Habit-Maker,"  and  had  looked 
at  the  tautly  attired,  preternaturally  slim 
models,  her  large,  honest  hazel  eyes  wear- 
ing an  anxious  expression.  She  was  trying 
to  discover  where  seams  were  to  be  placed 
and  how  gathers  were  to  be  hung ;  or  if 
there  were  to  be  gathers  at  all ;  or  if  one 
had  to  be  bereft  of  every  seam  in  a  style  so 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
unrelenting  as  to  forbid  the  possibility  of  the 
honest  and  semi-penniless  struggling  with 
the  problem  of  remodelling  last  season's  skirt 
at  all. 

"As  it  is  only  quite  an  ordinary  brown," 
she  had  murmured  to  herself,  "  I  might  be 
able  to  buy  a  yard  or  so  to  match  it,  and 
I  might  be  able  to  join  the  gore  near  the 
pleats  at  the  back  so  that  it  would  not  be 
seen." 

She  quite  beamed  as  she  reached  the 
happy  conclusion.  She  was  such  a  simple, 
normal-minded  creature  that  it  took  but 
little  to  brighten  the  aspect  of  life  for  her 
and  to  cause  her  to  break  into  her  good- 
natured,  childlike  smile.  A  little  kindness 
from  any  one,  a  little  pleasure  or  a  little 
comfort,  made  her  glow  with  nice-tempered 
enjoyment. 

C'3] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
As  she  got  out  of  the  bus,  and  picked  up 
her  rough  brown  skirt,  prepared  to  tramp 
bravely  through  the  mud  of  Mortimer  Street 
to  her  lodgings,  she  was  positively  radiant. 
It  was  not  only  her  smile  which  was  child- 
like, her  face  itself  was  childlike  for  a  woman 
of  her  age  and  size.  She  was  thirty-four 
and  a  well-set-up  creature,  with  fine  square 
shoulders  and  a  long  small  waist  and  good 
hips.  She  was  a  big  woman,  but  carried 
herself  well,  and  having  solved  the  problem 
of  obtaining,  through  marvels  of  energy  and 
management,  one  good  dress  a  year,  wore  it 
so  well,  and  changed  her  old  ones  so  dexter- 
ously, that  she  always  looked  rather  smartly 
dressed.  She  had  nice,  round,  fresh  cheeks 
and  nice  big,  honest  eyes,  plenty  of  mouse- 
brown  hair  and  a  short,  straight  nose.  She 
was  striking  and  well-bred-looking,  and  her 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
plenitude  of  good-natured  interest  in  every- 
body, and  her  pleasure  in  everything  out  of 
which  pleasure  could  be  wrested,  gave  her 
big  eyes  a  fresh  look  which  made  her  seem 
rather  like  a  nice  overgrown  girl  than  a 
mature  woman  whose  life  was  a  continu- 
ous struggle  with  the  narrowest  of  mean 
fortunes. 

She  was  a  woman  of  good  blood  and  of 
good  education,  as  the  education  of  such 
women  goes.  She  had  few  relatives,  and 
none  of  them  had  any  intention  of  burden- 
ing themselves  with  her  pennilessness. 
They  were  people  of  excellent  family,  but 
had  quite  enough  to  do  to  keep  their  sons  in 
the  army  or  navy  and  find  husbands  for  their 
daughters.  When  Emily's  mother  had  died 
and  her  small  annuity  had  died  with  her, 
none  of  them  had  wanted  the  care  of  a  big 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
raw-boned  girl,  and  Emily  had  had  the  situa- 
tion frankly  explained  to  her.  At  eighteen 
she  had  begun  work  as  assistant  teacher  in 
a  small  school;  the  year  following  she  had 
taken  a  place  as  nursery-governess ;  then  she 
had  been  reading-companion  to  an  unpleas- 
ant old  woman  in  Northumberland.  The 
old  woman  had  lived  in  the  country,  and  her 
relatives  had  hovered  over  her  like  vultures 
awaiting  her  decease.  The  household  had 
been  gloomy  and  gruesome  enough  to  have 
driven  into  melancholy  madness  any  girl  not 
of  the  sanest  and  most  matter-of-fact  tem- 
perament. Emily  Fox-Seton  had  endured  it 
with  an  unfailing  good  nature,  which  at  last 
had  actually  awakened  in  the  breast  of  her 
mistress  a  ray  of  human  feeling.  When  the 
old  woman  at  length  died,  and  Emily  was  to 
be  turned  out  into  the  world,  it  was  revealed 
[16] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
that  she  had  been  left  a  legacy  of  a  few 
hundred  pounds,  and  a  letter  containing 
some  rather  practical,  if  harshly  expressed, 
advice. 

Go  back  to  London  [Mrs.  Maytham  had 
written  in  her  feeble,  crabbed  hand].  You  are 
not  clever  enough  to  do  anything  remarkable  in 
the  way  of  earning  your  living,  but  you  are  so 
good-natured  that  you  can  make  yourself  useful  to 
a  lot  of  helpless  creatures  who  will  pay  you  a  trifle 
for  looking  after  them  and  the  affairs  they  are  too 
lazy  or  too  foolish  to  manage  for  themselves.  You 
might  get  on  to  one  of  the  second-class  fashion- 
papers  to  answer  ridiculous  questions  about  house- 
keeping or  wall-papers  or  freckles.  You  know  the 
kind  of  thing  I  mean.  You  might  write  notes  or 
do  accounts  and  shopping  for  some  lazy  woman. 
You  are  a  practical,  honest  creature,  and  you  have 
good  manners.  I  have  often  thought  that  you  had 
just  the  kind  of  commonplace  gifts  that  a  host  of 
commonplace  people  want  to  find  at  their  service. 
An  old  servant  of  mine  who  lives  in  Mortimer 
Street  would  probably  give  you  cheap,  decent 

['7] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

lodgings,  and  behave  well  to  you  for  my  sake. 
She  has  reason  to  be  fond  of  me.  Tell  her  I  sent 
you  to  her,  and  that  she  must  take  you  in  for  ten 
shillings  a  week. 

Emily  wept  for  gratitude,  and  ever  after- 
ward enthroned  old  Mrs.  Maytham  on  an 
altar  as  a  princely  and  sainted  benefactor, 
though  after  she  had  invested  her  legacy  she 
got  only  twenty  pounds  a  year  from  it. 

"It  was  so  kind  of  her,"  she  used  to  say 
with  heartfelt  humbleness  of  spirit.  "  I 
never  dreamed  of  her  doing  such  a  generous 
thing.  I  had  n't  a  shadow  of  a  claim  upon 
her  —  not  a  shadow" 

It  was  her  way  to  express  her  honest 
emotions  with  emphasis  which  italicised,  as 
it  were,  her  outpourings  of  pleasure  or 
appreciation. 

She  returned  to  London  and  presented 
herself  to  the  ex-serving-woman.  Mrs.  Cupp 
[18] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
had  indeed  reason  to  remember  her  mistress 
gratefully.  At  a  time  when  youth  and  in- 
discreet affection  had  betrayed  her  disas- 
trously, she  had  been  saved  from  open 
disgrace  and  taken  care  of  by  Mrs.  May- 
tham.  The  old  lady,  who  had  then  been  a 
vigorous,  sharp-tongued,  middle-aged  woman, 
had  made  the  soldier  lover  marry  his  despair- 
ing sweetheart,  and  when  he  had  promptly 
drunk  himself  to  death,  she  had  set  her  up 
in  a  lodging-house  which  had  thriven  and 
enabled  her  to  support  herself  and  her 
daughter  decently. 

In  the  second  story  of  her  respectable, 
dingy  house  there  was  a  small  room  which 
she  went  to  some  trouble  to  furnish  up  for 
her  dead  mistress's  friend.  It  was  made  into 
a  bed-sitting-room  with  the  aid  of  a  cot 
which  Emily  herself  bought  and  disguised 
['9] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
decently  as  a  couch  during  the  daytime,  by 
means  of  a  red  and  blue  Como  blanket. 
The  one  window  of  the  room  looked  out 
upon  a  black  little  back-yard  and  a  sooty 
wall  on  which  thin  cats  crept  stealthily  or 
sat  and  mournfully  gazed  at  fate.  The 
Como  rug  played  a  large  part  in  the  decora- 
tion of  the  apartment.  One  of  them,  with  a 
piece  of  tape  run  through  a  hem,  hung  over 
the  door  in  the  character  of  a  portiere; 
another  covered  a  corner  which  was  Miss 
Fox-Seton's  sole  wardrobe.  As  she  began 
to  get  work,  the  cheerful,  aspiring  creature 
bought  herself  a  Kensington  carpet-square, 
as  red  as  Kensingson  art  would  permit  it  to 
be.  She  covered  her  chairs  with  Turkey-red 
cotton,  frilling  them  round  the  seats.  Over 
her  cheap  white  muslin  curtains  (eight  and 
eleven  a  pair  at  Robson's)  she  hung  Turkey- 

[20] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
red  draperies.  She  bought  a  cheap  cushion 
at  one  of  Liberty's  sales,  and  some  bits  of 
twopenny-halfpenny  art  china  for  her  narrow 
mantelpiece.  A  lacquered  tea-tray  and  a 
tea-set  of  a  single  cup  and  saucer,  a  plate 
and  a  teapot,  made  her  feel  herself  almost 
sumptuous.  After  a  day  spent  in  trudging 
about  in  the  wet  or  cold  of  the  streets,  doing 
other  people's  shopping,  or  searching  for 
dressmakers  or  servants'  characters  for  her 
patrons,  she  used  to  think  of  her  bed-sitting- 
room  with  joyful  anticipation.  Mrs.  Cupp 
always  had  a  bright  fire  glowing  in  her  tiny 
grate  when  she  came  in,  and  when  her  lamp 
was  lighted  under  its  home-made  shade  of 
crimson  Japanese  paper,  its  cheerful  air,  com- 
bining itself  with  the  singing  of  her  little, 
fat,  black  kettle  on  the  hob,  seemed  absolute 
luxury  to  a  tired,  damp  woman. 
[*•] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
Mrs.  Cupp  and  Jane  Cupp  were  very 
kind  and  attentive  to  her.  No  one  who 
lived  in  the  same  house  with  her  could  have 
helped  liking  her.  She  gave  so  little  trouble, 
and  was  so  expansively  pleased  by  any  atten- 
tion, that  the  Cupps,  —  who  were  sometimes 
rather  bullied  and  snubbed  by  the  "  profes- 
sionals "  who  generally  occupied  their  other 
rooms,  —  quite  loved  her.  Sometimes  the 
"  professionals,"  extremely  smart  ladies  and 
gentlemen  who  did  turns  at  the  halls  or 
played  small  parts  at  theatres,  were  irregular 
in  their  payments  or  went  away  leaving  bills 
behind  them ;  but  Miss  Fox-Seton's  pay- ' 
ments  were  as  regular  as  Saturday  night, 
and,  in  fact,  there  had  been  times  when, 
luck  being  against  her,  Emily  had  gone 
extremely  hungry  during  a  whole  week 
rather  than  buy  her  lunches  at  the  ladies' 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
tea-shops  with  the  money  that  would  pay 
her  rent. 

In  the  honest  minds  of  the  Cupps,  she 
had  become  a  sort  of  possession  of  which 
they  were  proud.  She  seemed  to  bring  into 
their  dingy  lodging-house  a  touch  of  the 
great  world,  —  that  world  whose  people  lived 
in  Mayfair  and  had  country-houses  where 
they  entertained  parties  for  the  shooting  and 
the  hunting,  and  in  which  also  existed  the 
maids  and  matrons  who  on  cold  spring  morn- 
ings sat,  amid  billows  of  satin  and  tulle 
and  lace,  surrounded  with  nodding  plumes, 
waiting,  shivering,  for  hours  in  their  car- 
riages that  they  might  at  last  enter  Buck- 
ingham Palace  and  be  admitted  to  the 
Drawing-room.  Mrs.  Cupp  knew  that  Miss 
Fox-Seton  was  "  well  connected  ;  "  she  knew 
that  she  possessed  an  aunt  with  a  title, 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
though  her  ladyship  never  took  the  slight- 
est notice  of  her  niece.  Jane  Cupp  took 
"  Modern  Society,"  and  now  and  then  had 
the  pleasure  of  reading  aloud  to  her  young 
man  little  incidents  concerning  some  castle 
or  manor  in  which  Miss  Fox-Seton's  aunt, 
Lady  Malfry,  was  staying  with  earls  and 
special  favorites  of  the  Prince's.  Jane  also 
knew  that  Miss  Fox-Seton  occasionally  sent 
letters  addressed  "  To  the  Right  Honourable 
the  Countess  of  So-and-so,"  and  received 
replies  stamped  with  coronets.  Once  even 
a  letter  had  arrived  adorned  with  strawberry- 
leaves,  an  incident  which  Mrs.  Cupp  and 
Jane  had  discussed  with  deep  interest  over 
their  hot  buttered-toast  and  tea. 

Emily  Fox-Seton,  however,  was  far  from 
making  any  professions  of  grandeur.  As 
time  went  on,  she  had  become  fond  enough 

CH] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
of  the  Cupps  to  be  quite  frank  with  them 
about  her  connections  with  these  grand 
people.  The  countess  had  heard  from  a 
friend  that  Miss  Fox-Seton  had  once  found 
her  an  excellent  governess,  and  she  had 
commissioned  her  to  find  for  her  a  reliable 
young  ladies'  serving-maid.  She  had  done 
some  secretarial  work  for  a  charity  of  which 
the  duchess  was  patroness.  In  fact,  these 
people  knew  her  only  as  a  well-bred  woman 
who  for  a  modest  remuneration  would  make 
herself  extremely  useful  in  numberless  prac- 
tical ways.  She  knew  much  more  of  them 
than  they  knew  of  her,  and,  in  her  affection- 
ate admiration  for  those  who  treated  her 
with  human  kindness,  sometimes  spoke  to 
Mrs.  Cupp  or  Jane  of  their  beauty  or  charity 
with  a  very  nice,  ingenuous  feeling.  Natu- 
rally some  of  her  patrons  grew  fond  of 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
her,  and  as  she  was  a  fine,  handsome 
young  woman  with  a  perfectly  correct 
bearing,  they  gave  her  little  pleasures,  invit- 
ing her  to  tea  or  luncheon,  or  taking  her 
to  the  theatre. 

Her  enjoyment  of  these  things  was  so 
frank  and  grateful  that  the  Cupps  counted 
them  among  their  own  joys.  Jane  Cupp  — 
who  knew  something  of  dressmaking  —  felt 
it  a  brilliant  thing  to  be  called  upon  to  reno- 
vate an  old  dress  or  help  in  the  making  of 
a  new  one  for  some  festivity.  The  Cupps 
thought  their  tall,  well-built  lodger  some- 
thing of  a  beauty,  and  when  they  had  helped 
her  to  dress  for  the  evening,  baring  her  fine, 
big  white  neck  and  arms,  and  adorning  her 
thick  braids  of  hair  with  some  sparkling, 
trembling  ornament,  after  putting  her  in  her 
four-wheeled  cab,  they  used  to  go  back  to 
[26] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

their  kitchen  and  talk  about  her,  and  wonder 
that  some  gentleman  who  wanted  a  hand- 
some, stylish  woman  at  the  head  of  his  table, 
did  not  lay  himself  and  his  fortune  at  her 
feet. 

41  In  the  photograph-shops  in  Regent  Street 
you  see  many  a  lady  in  a  coronet  that  hasn't 
half  the  good  looks  she  has,"  Mrs.  Cupp 
remarked  frequently.  "  She 's  got  a  nice 
complexion  and  a  fine  head  of  hair,  and  — 
if  you  ask  me  —  she  's  got  as  nice  a  pair  ot 
clear  eyes  as  a  lady  could  have.  Then  look 
at  her  figure  —  her  neck  and  her  waist ! 
That  kind  of  big  long  throat  of  hers  would 
set  off  rows  of  pearls  or  diamonds  beautiful ! 
She  's  a  lady  born,  too,  for  all  her  simple, 
every-day  way  ;  and  she  's  a  sweet  creature, 
if  ever  there  was  one.  For  kind-heartedness 
and  good-nature  I  never  saw  her  equal." 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
Miss  Fox-Seton  had  middle-class  patrons 
as  well  as  noble  ones,  —  in  fact,  those  of 
the  middle  class  were  far  more  numerous 
than  the  duchesses,  —  so  it  had  been  pos- 
sible for  her  to  do  more  than  one  good  turn 
for  the  Cupp  household.  She  had  got  sew- 
ing in  Maida  Vale  and  Bloomsbury  for  Jane 
Cupp  many  a  time,  and  Mrs.  Cupp's  dining- 
room  floor  had  been  occupied  for  years  by 
a  young  man  Emily  had  been  able  to  rec- 
ommend. Her  own  appreciation  of  good 
turns  made  her  eager  to  do  them  for  others. 
She  never  let  slip  a  chance  to  help  any  one 
in  any  way. 

It  was  a  good-natured  thing  done  by  one 
of  her  patrons  who  liked  her,  which  made 
her  so  radiant  as  she  walked  through  the 
mud  this  morning.  She  was  inordinately 
fond  of  the  country,  and  having  had  what 
[28] 


THE   MAKING  of  a* MARCHIONESS 

she  called  "  a  bad  winter,"  she  had  not  seen 
the  remotest  chance  of  getting  out  of  town 
at  all  during  the  summer  months.  The 
weather  was  beginning  to  be  unusually  hot, 
and  her  small  red  room,  which  seemed  so 
cosy  in  winter,  was  shut  in  by  a  high 
wall  from  all  chance  of  breezes.  Occasion- 
ally she  lay  and  panted  a  little  in  her  cot, 
and  felt  that  when  all  the  private  omnibuses, 
loaded  with  trunks  and  servants,  had  rattled 
away  and  deposited  their  burdens  at  the 
various  stations,  life  in  town  would  be  rather 
lonely.  Every  one  she  knew  would  have 
gone  somewhere,  and  Mortimer  Street  in 
August  was  a  melancholy  thing. 

And  Lady  Maria  had  actually  invited 
her  to  Mallowe.  What  a  piece  of  good 
fortune — what  an  extraordinary  piece  of 
kindness ! 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
She  did  not  know  what  a  source  of  enter- 
tainment she  was  to  Lady  Maria,  and  how 
the  shrewd,  worldly  old  thing  liked  her. 
Lady  Maria  Bayne  was  the  cleverest,  sharp- 
est-tongued,  smartest  old  woman  in  London. 
She  knew  everybody  and  had  done  every- 
thing—  in  her  youth,  a  good  many  things  not 
considered  highly  proper.  A  certain  royal 
duke  had  been  much  pleased  with  her,  and 
people  had  said  some  very  nasty  things  about 
it.  But  this  had  not  hurt  Lady  Maria.  She 
knew  how  to  say  nasty  things  herself,  and 
as  she  said  them  wittily  they  were  usually 
listened  to  and  repeated. 

Ernily  Fox-Seton  had  gone  to  her  first  to 
write  notes  for  an  hour  every  morning.  She 
had  sent,  declined,  and  accepted  invitations, 
and  put  off  charities  and  dull  people.  She 
wrote  a  fine,  dashing  hand,  and  had  a 
[30] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
matter-of-fact  intelligence  and  knowledge 
of  things.  Lady  Maria  began  to  depend 
on  her  and  to  find  that  she  could  be  sent 
on  errands  and  depended  on  to  do  a  num- 
ber of  things.  Consequently,  she  was  often 
at  South  Audley  Street,  and  once,  when 
Lady  Maria  was  suddenly  taken  ill  and  was 
horribly  frightened  about  herself,  Emily  was 
such  a  comfort  to  her  that  she  kept  her 
for  three  weeks. 

"The  creature  is  so  cheerful  and  perfectly 
free  from  vice  that  she  's  a  relief,"  her  lady- 
ship said  to  her  nephew  afterward.  u  So 
many  women  are  affected  cats.  She  '11  go 
out  and  buy  you  a  box  of  pills  or  a  porous 
plaster,  but  at  the  same  time  she  has  a  kind 
of  simplicity  and  freedom  from  spites  and 
envies  which  might  be  the  natural  thing 
for  a  princess." 

[31] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

So  it  happened  that  occasionally  Emily 
put  on  her  best  dress  and  most  carefully 
built  hat  and  went  to  South  Audley  Street  to 
tea.  (Sometimes  she  had  previously  gone  in 
buses  to  some  remote  place  in  the  City  to 
buy  a  special  tea  of  which  there  had  been 
rumours.)  She  met  some  very  smart  people 
and  rarely  any  stupid  ones,  Lady  Maria  being 
incased  in  a  perfect,  frank  armour  of  good- 
humoured  selfishness,  which  would  have  been 
capable  of  burning  dulness  at  the  stake. 

"  I  won't  have  dull  people,"  she  used  to 
say.  "  I  'm  dull  myself." 

When  Emily  Fox-Seton  went  to  her  on 
the  morning  in  which  this  story  opens,  she 
found  her  consulting  her  visiting-book  and 
making  lists. 

"  I  'm  arranging  my  parties  for  Mallowe," 
she  said  rather  crossly.  "  How  tiresome  it 
[32] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
is !  The  people  one  wants  at  the  same  time 
are  always  nailed  to  the  opposite  ends  of 
the  earth.  And  then  things  are  found  out 
about  people,  and  one  can't  have  them  till 
it 's  blown  over.  Those  ridiculous  Dexters  ! 
They  were  the  nicest  possible  pair  —  both  of 
them  good-looking  and  both  of  them  ready 
to  flirt  with  anybody.  But  there  was  too 
much  flirting,  I  suppose.  Good  heavens  1  if 
I  could  n't  have  a  scandal  and  keep  it  quiet, 
I  wouldn't  have  a  scandal  at  all.  Come 
and  help  me,  Emily." 

Emily  sat  down  beside  her. 

"  You  see,  it  is  my  early  August  party," 
said  her  ladyship,  rubbing  her  delicate  little 
old  nose  with  her  pencil,  "  and  Walderhurst 
is  coming  to  me.  It  always  amuses  me  to 
have  Walderhurst.  The  moment  a  man 
like  that  comes  into  a  room  the  women 
3  [33J 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
begin  to  frisk  about  and  swim  and  languish, 
except  those  who  try  to  get  up  interesting 
conversations  they  think  likely  to  attract  his 
attention.  They  all  think  it  is  possible  that 
he  may  marry  them.  If  he  were  a  Mormon 
he  might  have  marchionesses  of  Walderhurst 
of  all  shapes  and  sizes." 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Emily,  "  that  he  was 
very  much  in  love  with  his  first  wife  and 
will  never  marry  again." 

"  He  was  n't  in  love  with  her  any  more 
than  he  was  in  love  with  his  housemaid.  He 
knew  he  must  marry,  and  thought  it  very 
annoying.  As  the  child  died,  I  believe  he 
thinks  it  his  duty  to  marry  again.  But  he 
hates  it.  He 's  rather  dull,  and  he  can't 
bear  women  fussing  about  and  wanting  to 
be  made  love  to." 

They  went  over  the  visiting-book  and 
[34] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
discussed  people  and  dates  seriously.  The 
list  was  made  and  the  notes  written  before 
Emily  left  the  house.  It  was  not  until  she 
had  got  up  and  was  buttoning  her  coat  that 
Lady  Maria  bestowed  her  boon. 

"  Emily,"  she  said,  "  I  am  going  to  ask 
you  to  Mallowe  on  the  2d.  I  want  you  to 
help  me  to  take  care  of  people  and  keep 
them  from  boring  me  and  one  another, 
though  Jj^on't  mind  their  boring  one  an- 
other half  so  much  as  I  mind  their  boring 
me.  I  want  to  be  able  to  go  off  and 
take  my  nap  at  any  hour  I  choose.  I 
will  not  entertain  people.  What  you  can 
do  is  to  lead  them  off  to  gather  things 
or  look  at  church  towers.  I  hope  you  '11 
come." 

Emily  Fox-Seton's  face  flushed  rosily,  and 
her  eyes  opened  and  sparkled. 
[35] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
"  O  Lady  Maria,  you  are  kind  !  "  she 
said.  u  You  know  how  I  should  enjoy  it. 
I  have  heard  so  much  of  Mallowe.  Every 
one  says  it  is  so  beautiful  and  that  there  are 
no  such  gardens  in  England." 

"  They  are  good  gardens.  My  4msband 
was  rather  mad  about  roses.  The  best  train 
for  you  to  take  is  the  2:30  from  Paddington. 
That  will  bring  you  to  the  Court  just  in 
time  for  tea  on  the  lawn." 

Emily  could  have  kissed  Lady  Maria  if 
they  had  been  on  the  terms  which  lead  peo- 
ple to  make  demonstrations  of  affection. 
But  she  would  have  been  quite  as  likely  to 
kiss  the  butler  when  he  bent  over  her  at 
dinner  and  murmured  in  dignified  confi- 
dence, "  Port  or  sherry,  miss  ?  "  Bibs- 
worth  would  have  been  no  more  astonished 
than  Lady  Maria  would,  and  Bibsworth 
[36] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
certainly  would  have  expired  of  disgust  and 
horror. 

She  was  so  happy  when  she  hailed  the 
twopenny  bus  that  when  she  got  into  it  her 
face  was  beaming  with  the  delight  which 
adds  freshness  and  good  looks  to  any  woman. 
To  think  that  such  good  luck  had  come  to 
her !  To  think  of  leaving  her  hot  little 
room  behind  her  and  going  as  a  guest  to  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  old  houses  in  Eng- 
land !  How  delightful  it  would  be  to  live 
for  a  while  quite  naturally  the  life  the  for- 
tunate people  lived  year  after  year — to  be 
a  part  of  the  beautiful  order  and  picturesque- 
ness  and  dignity  of  it !  To  sleep  in  a  lovely 
bedroom,  to  be  called  in  the  morning  by  a 
perfect  housemaid,  to  have  one's  early  tea 
served  in  a  delicate  cup,  and  to  listen  as 
one  drank  it  to  the  birds  singing  in  the 
[37] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
trees  in  the  park  !  She  had  an  ingenuous 
appreciation  of  the  simplest  material  joys, 
and  the  fact  that  she  would  wear  her  nicest 
clothes  every  day,  and  dress  for  dinner  every 
evening,  was  a  delightful  thing  to  reflect 
upon.  She  got  so  much  more  out  of  life  than 
most  people,  though  she  was  not  aware  of  it. 

She  opened  the  front  door  of  the  house 
in  Mortimer  Street  with  her  latch-key,  and 
went  upstairs,  almost  unconscious  that  the 
damp  heat  was  dreadful.  She  met  Jane 
Cupp  coming  down,  and  smiled  at  her 
happily. 

"  Jane,"  she  said,  "  if  you  are  not  busy, 
I  should  like  to  have  a  little  talk  with  you. 
Will  you  come  into  my  room  ?  " 

"  Yes,  miss,"  Jane  replied,  with  her  usual 
respectful  lady's-maid's  air.  It  was  in  truth 
Jane's  highest  ambition  to  become  some  day 
[38] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
maid  to  a  great  lady,  and  she  privately  felt 
that  her  association  with  Miss  Fox-Seton 
was  the  best  possible  training.  She  used  to 
ask  to  be  allowed  to  dress  her  when  she 
went  out,  and  had  felt  it  a  privilege  to  be 
permitted  to  "  do "  her  hair. 

She  helped  Emily  to  remove  her  walking- 
dress,  and  neatly  folded  away  her  gloves  and 
veil.  She  knelt  down  before  her  as  soon 
as  she  saw  her  seat  herself  to  take  off  her 
muddy  boots. 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  Jane,"  Emily  exclaimed, 
with  her  kind  italicised  manner.  "  That  is 
good  of  you.  I  am  tired,  really.  But  such 
a  nice  thing  has  happened.  I  have  had  such 
a  delightful  invitation  for  the  first  week  in 
August." 

"  I  'm  sure   you  '11  enjoy   it,   miss,"    said 
Jane.     "  It  's  so  hot  in  August." 
[39] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

"Lady  Maria  Bayne  has  been  kind  enough 
to  invite  me  to  Mallowe  Court,"  explained 
Emily,  smiling  down  at  the  cheap  slipper 
Jane  was  putting  on  her  large,  well-shaped 
foot.  She  was  built  on  a  large  scale, 
and  her  foot  was  of  no  Cinderella-like 
proportions. 

"  O  miss !  "  exclaimed  Jane.  "  How 
beautiful !  I  was  reading  about  Mallowe  in 
'  Modern  Society '  the  other  day,  and  it  said 
it  was  lovely  and  her  ladyship's  parties  were 
wonderful  for  smartness.  The  paragraph 
was  about  the  Marquis  of  Walderhurst." 

"  He  is  Lady  Maria's  cousin,"  said  Emily, 
"  and  he  will  be  there  when  I  am." 

She  was  a  friendly  creature,  and  lived  a 
life  so  really  isolated  from  any  ordinary  com- 
panionship that  her  simple  little  talks  with 
Jane  and  Mrs.  Cupp  were  a  pleasure  to 
[40] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

her.  The  Cupps  were  neither  gossiping 
nor  intrusive,  and  she  felt  as  if  they  were 
her  friends.  Once  when  she  had  been  ill 
for  a  week  she  remembered  suddenly  real- 
ising that  she  had  no  intimates  at  all,  and 
that  if  she  died  Mrs.  Cupp's  and  Jane's 
would  certainly  be  the  last  faces  —  and  the 
only  ones  —  she  would  see.  She  had  cried 
a  little  the  night  she  thought  of  it,  but 
then,  as  she  told  herself,  she  was  feverish 
and  weak,  and  it  made  her  morbid. 

"  It  was  because  of  this  invitation  that 
I  wanted  to  talk  to  you,  Jane,"  she  went 
on.  "  You  see,  we  shall  have  to  begin  to 
contrive  about  dresses." 

"Yes,  indeed,  miss.     It's   fortunate   that 

the  summer  sales  are  on,  is  n't  it  ?     I  saw 

some    beautiful    colored     linens    yesterday. 

They  were  so  cheap,  and  they  do  make  up 

[4'] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
so  smart  for  the  country.  Then  you  've  got 
your  new  Tussore  with  the  blue  collar  and 
waistband.  It  does  become  you." 

"  I  must  say  I  think  that  a  Tussore  always 
looks  fresh,"  said  Emily,  "  and  I  saw  a  really 
nice  little  tan  toque — one  of  those  soft  straw 
ones — for  three  and  eleven.  And  just  a 
twist  of  blue  chiffon  and  a  wing  would  make 
it  look  quite  good" 

She  was  very  clever  with  her  ringers,  and 
often  did  excellent  things  with  a  bit  of 
chiffon  and  a  wing,  or  a  few  yards  of  linen 
or  muslin  and  a  remnant  of  lace  picked  up  at 
a  sale.  She  and  Jane  spent  quite  a  happy 
afternoon  in  careful  united  contemplation  of 
the  resources  of  her  limited  wardrobe.  They 
found  that  the  brown  skirt  could  be  altered, 
and,  with  the  addition  of  new  revers  and 
collar  and  a  jabot  of  string-coloured  lace 
[4*] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
at  the  neck,  would  look  quite  fresh.  A 
black  net  evening  dress,  which  a  patron 
had  good-naturedly  given  her  the  year  be- 
fore, could  be  remodelled  and  touched  up 
delightfully.  Her  fresh  face  and  her  square 
white  shoulders  were  particularly  adorned 
by  black.  There  was  a  white  dress  which 
could  be  sent  to  the  cleaner's,  and  an 
old  pink  one  whose  superfluous  breadths 
could  be  combined  with  lace  and  achieve 
wonders. 

"  Indeed,  I  think  I  shall  be  very  well  ofF 
for  dinner-dresses,"  said  Emily.  "  Nobody 
expects  me  to  change  often.  Every  one 
knows —  if  they  notice  at  all."  She  did  not 
know  she  was  humble-minded  and  of  an 
angelic  contentedness  of  spirit.  In  fact,  she 
did  not  find  herself  interested  in  contempla- 
tion of  her  own  qualities,  but  in  contempla- 
[43] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
don  and  admiration  of  those  of  other  people. 
It  was  necessary  to  provide  Emily  Fox- 
Seton  with  food  and  lodging  and  such  a 
wardrobe  as  would  be  just  sufficient  credit 
to  her  more  fortunate  acquaintances.  She 
worked  hard  to  attain  this  modest  end 
and  was  quite  satisfied.  She  found  at  the 
shops  where  the  summer  sales  were  being 
held  a  couple  of  cotton  frocks  to  which 
her  height  and  her  small,  long  waist  gave 
an  air  of  actual  elegance.  A  sailor  hat, 
with  a  smart  ribbon  and  well-set  quill,  a 
few  new  trifles  for  her  neck,  a  bow,  a  silk 
handkerchief  daringly  knotted,  and  some 
fresh  gloves,  made  her  feel  that  she  was 
sufficiently  equipped. 

During    her    last   expedition   to  the   sales 
she  came  upon  a  nice  white  duck  coat  and 
skirt  which  she  contrived  to  buy  as  a  present 
[44] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
for  Jane.  It  was  necessary  to  count  over 
the  contents  of  her  purse  very  carefully  and 
to  give  up  the  purchase  of  a  slim  umbrella 
she  wanted,  but  she  did  it  cheerfully.  If  she 
had  been  a  rich  woman  she  would  have  given 
presents  to  every  one  she  knew,  and  it  was 
actually  a  luxury  to  her  to  be  able  to  do 
something  for  the  Cupps,  who,  she  always 
felt,  were  continually  giving  her  more  than 
she  paid  for.  The  care  they  took  of  her 
small  room,  the  fresh  hot  tea  they  managed 
to  have  ready  when  she  came  in,  the  penny 
bunch  of  daffodils  they  sometimes  put  on  her 
table,  were  kindnesses,  and  she  was  grateful 
for  them. 

"  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you,  Jane," 

she  said  to  the  girl,  when  she  got  into  the 

four-wheeled  cab  on  the  eventful  day  of  her 

journey  to  Mallowe.     "  I  don't  know  what  I 

[45] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
should  have  done  without  you,  I  'm  sure.  I 
feel  so  smart  in  my  dress  now  that  you  have 
altered  it.  If  Lady  Maria's  maid  ever  thinks 
of  leaving  her,  I  am  sure  I  could  recom- 
mend you  for  her  place." 


[46] 


HERE  were  other 
visitors  to  Mallowe 
Court  travelling  by 
the  2:30  from  Pad- 
dington,  but  they 
were  much  smarter 
people  than  Miss  Fox-Seton,  and  they  were 
put  into  a  first-class  carriage  by  a  footman 
with  a  cockade  and  a  long  drab  coat.  Emily, 
who  travelled  third  with  some  workmen 
with  bundles,  looked  out  of  her  window  as 
they  passed,  and  might  possibly  have  breathed 
a  faint  sigh  if  she  had  not  felt  in  such  buoy- 
[47] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
ant  spirits.  She  had  put  on  her  revived 
brown  skirt  and  a  white  linen  blouse  with  a 
brown  dot  on  it.  A  soft  brown  silk  tie  was 
knotted  smartly  under  her  fresh  collar,  and 
she  wore  her  new  sailor  hat.  Her  gloves 
were  brown,  and  so  was  her  parasol.  She 
looked  nice  and  taut  and  fresh,  but  notably 
inexpensive.  The  people  who  went  to  sales 
and  bought  things  at  three  and  eleven  or 
"  four-three  "  a  yard  would  have  been  able  to 
add  her  up  and  work  out  her  total.  But  there 
would  be  no  people  capable  of  the  calculation 
at  Mallowe.  Even  the  servants'  hall  was 
likely  to  know  less  of  prices  than  this  one 
guest  did.  The  people  the  drab-coated  foot- 
man escorted  to  the  first-class  carriage  were 
a  mother  and  daughter.  The  mother  had 
regular  little  features,  and  would  have  been 
pretty  if  she  had  not  been  much  too  plump. 
[48] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
She  wore  an  extremely  smart  travelling-dress 
and  a  wonderful  dust-cloak  of  cool,  pale, 
thin  silk.  She  was  not  an  elegant  person, 
but  her  appointments  were  luxurious  and 
self-indulgent.  Her  daughter  was  pretty, 
and  had  a  slim,  swaying  waist,  soft  pink 
cheeks,  and  a  pouting  mouth.  Her  large 
picture-hat  of  pale-blue  straw,  with  its  big 
gauze  bow  and  crushed  roses,  had  a  slightly 
exaggerated  Parisian  air. 

"It  is  a  little  too  picturesque,"  Emily 
thought ;  "  but  how  lovely  she  looks  in  it ! 
I  suppose  it  was  so  becoming  she  could  not 
help  buying  it.  I'm  sure  it's  Virot." 

As  she  was  looking  at  the  girl  admiringly, 
a  man  passed  her  window.  He  was  a  tall 
man  with  a  square  face.  As  he  passed 
close  to  Emily,  he  stared  through  her  head 
as  if  she  had  been  transparent  or  invisible. 
4  [49] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
He  got  into  the  smoking-carriage  next  to 
her. 

When  the  train  arrived  at  Mallowe  station, 
he  was  one  of  the  first  persons  who  got  out. 
Two  of  Lady  Maria's  men  were  waiting 
on  the  platform.  Emily  recognised  their 
liveries.  One  met  the  tall  man,  touching 
his  hat,  and  followed  him  to  a  high  cart,  in 
the  shafts  of  which  a  splendid  iron-gray 
mare  was  fretting  and  dancing.  In  a  few 
moments  the  arrival  was  on  the  high  seat, 
the  footman  behind,  and  the  mare  speeding 
up  the  road.  Miss  Fox-Seton  found  her- 
self following  the  second  footman  and  the 
mother  and  daughter,  who  were  being  taken 
to  the  landau  waiting  outside  the  station. 
The  footman  piloted  them,  merely  touching 
his  hat  quickly  to  Emily,  being  fully  aware 
that  she  could  take  care  of  herself. 
[50] 


Silk  .at 


Cora  Brooke 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

This  she  did  promptly,  looking  after  her 
box,  and  seeing  it  safe  in  the  Mallowe  omni- 
bus. When  she  reached  the  landau,  the  two 
other  visitors  were  in  it.  She  got  in,  and  in 
entire  contentment  sat  down  with  her  back 
to  the  horses. 

The  mother  and  daughter  wore  for  a  few 
minutes  a  somewhat  uneasy  air.  They  were 
evidently  sociable  persons,  but  were  not 
quite  sure  how  to  begin  a  conversation  with 
an  as  yet  unintroduced  lady  who  was  going 
to  stay  at  the  country  house  to  which  they 
were  themselves  invited. 

Emily  herself  solved  the  problem,  produc- 
ing her  commonplace  with  a  friendly  tenta- 
tive smile. 

u  Is  n't  it  a  lovely  country  ?  "  she  said. 

"  It 's  perfect,"  answered  the  mother. 
u  I  've  never  visited  Europe  before,  and  the 
[Si] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
English  country  seems  to  me  just  exquisite. 
We  have  a  summer  place  in  America,  but 
the  country  is  quite  different." 

She  was  good-natured  and  disposed  to  talk, 
and,  with  Emily  Fox-Seton's  genial  assist- 
ance, conversation  flowed.  Before  they  were 
half-way  to  Mallowe,  it  had  revealed  itself 
that  they  were  from  Cincinnati,  and  after  a 
winter  spent  in  Paris,  largely  devoted  to 
visits  to  Paquin,  Doucet,  and  Virot,  they 
had  taken  a  house  in  Mayfair  for  the  season. 
Their  name  was  Brooke.  Emily  thought  she 
remembered  hearing  of  them  as  people  who 
spent  a  great  deal  of  money  and  went  in- 
cessantly to  parties,  always  in  new  and 
lovely  clothes.  The  girl  had  been  presented 
by  the  American  minister,  and  had  had  a 
sort  of  success  because  she  dressed  and 
danced  exquisitely.  She  was  the  kind  of 
[5*] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
American  girl  who  ended  by  marrying  a 
title.  She  had  sparkling  eyes  and  a  delicate 
tip-tilted  nose.  But  even  Emily  guessed 
that  she  was  an  astute  little  person. 

"  Have  you  ever  been  to  Mallowe  Court 
before  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"  No ;  and  I  am  so  looking  forward  to  it. 
It  is  so  beautiful." 

u  Do  you  know  Lady  Maria  very  well  ?  " 

"I've  known  her  about  three  years.  She 
has  been  very  kind  to  me." 

"  Well,  I  should  n't  have  taken  her  for 
a  particularly  kind  person.  She  's  too 
sharp." 

Emily  amiably  smiled.  "  She 's  so  clever," 
she  replied. 

"  Do  you  know  the  Marquis  of  Walder- 
hurst  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Brooke. 

"  No,"  answered  Miss  Fox-Seton.  She 
[53] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
had  no  part  in  that  portion  of  Lady  Maria's 
life  which  was  illumined  by  cousins  who 
were  marquises.  Lord  Walderhurst  did  not 
drop  in  to  afternoon  tea.  He  kept  himself 
for  special  dinner-parties. 

"  Did  you  see  the  man  who  drove  away 
in  the  high  cart  ? "  Mrs.  Brooke  continued, 
with  a  touch  of  fevered  interest.  "  Cora 
thought  it  must  be  the  marquis.  The  ser- 
vant who  met  him  wore  the  same  livery 
as  the  man  up  there"  —  with  a  nod  toward 
the  box. 

"  It  was  one  of  Lady  Maria's  servants," 
said  Emily  ;  "  I  have  seen  him  in  South  Aud- 
ley  Street.  And  Lord  Walderhurst  was  to 
be  at  Mallowe.  Lady  Maria  mentioned  it." 

"  There,  mother  !  "  exclaimed  Cora. 

"  Well,  of  course  if  he  is  to  be  there, 
it  will  make  it  interesting,"  returned  her 
[54] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
mother,  in  a  tone  in  which  lurked  an  ad- 
mission of  relief.  Emily  wondered  if  she 
had  wanted  to  go  somewhere  else  and  had 
been  firmly  directed  toward  Mallowe  by  her 
daughter. 

"  We  heard  a  great  deal  of  him  in  Lon- 
don this  season,"  Mrs.  Brooke  went  on. 

Miss  Cora  Brooke  laughed. 

"  We  heard  that  at  least  half  a  dozen 
people  were  determined  to  marry  him,"  she 
remarked  with  pretty  scorn.  "  I  should 
think  that  to  meet  a  girl  who  was  indiffer- 
ent might  be  good  for  him." 

"  Don't  be  too  indifferent,  Cora,"  said 
her  mother,  with  ingenuous  ineptness. 

It  was  a  very  stupid  bit  of  revelation,  and 

Miss  Brooke's  eyes  flashed.      If  Emily  Fox- 

Seton  had  been  a  sharp  woman,  she  would 

have  observed  that,  if  the  role  of  indifferent 

[55] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
and  piquant  young  person  could  be  made 
dangerous  to  Lord  Walderhurst,  it  would 
be  made  so  during  this  visit.  The  man  was 
in  peril  from  this  beauty  from  Cincinnati 
and  her  rather  indiscreet  mother,  though, 
upon  the  whole,  the  indiscreet  maternal 
parent  might  unconsciously  form  his  pro- 
tection. 

But  Emily  only  laughed  amiably,  as  at  a 
humorous  remark.  She  was  ready  to  accept 
almost  anything  as  humour. 

"Well,  he  would  be  a  great  match  for 
any  girl,"  she  said.  "  He  is  so  rich,  you 
know.  He  is  very  rich." 

When  they  reached  Mallowe,  and  were 
led  out  upon  the  lawn,  where  the  tea  was 
being  served  under  embowering  trees,  they 
found  a  group  of  guests  eating  little  hot 
cakes  and  holding  teacups  in  their  hands. 
[56] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
There  were  several  young  women,  and  one 
of  them — a  very  tall,  very  fair  girl,  with 
large  eyes  as  blue  as  forget-me-nots,  and  with 
a  lovely,  limp,  and  long  blue  frock  of  the 
same  shade  —  had  been  one  of  the  beauties 
of  the  past  season.  She  was  a  Lady  Agatha 
Slade,  and  Emily  began  to  admire  her  at 
once.  She  felt  her  to  be  a  sort  of  added 
boon  bestowed  by  kind  Fate  upon  herself. 
It  was  so  delightful  that  she  should  be  of 
this  particular  house-party  —  this  lovely 
creature,  whom  she  had  only  known  pre- 
viously through  pictures  in  ladies'  illustrated 
papers.  If  it  should  occur  to  her  to  wish 
to  become  the  Marchioness  of  Walder- 
hurst,  what  could  possibly  prevent  the  con- 
summation of  her  desire  ?  Surely  not  Lord 
Walderhurst  himself,  if  he  was  human. 
She  was  standing,  leaning  lightly  against  the 
[57] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
trunk  of  an  ilex-tree,  and  a  snow-white 
Borzoi  was  standing  close  to  her,  resting 
his  long,  delicate  head  against  her  gown, 
encouraging  the  caresses  of  her  fair,  stroking 
hand.  She  was  in  this  attractive  pose  when 
Lady  Maria  turned  in  her  seat  and  said  : 

"  There  's  Walderhurst." 

The  man  who  had  driven  himself  over 
from  the  station  in  the  cart  was  coming 
towards  them  across  the  grass.  He  was 
past  middle  life  and  plain,  but  was  of  good 
height  and  had  an  air.  It  was  perhaps,  on 
the  whole,  rather  an  air  of  knowing  what 
he  wanted. 

Emily  Fox-Seton,  who  by  that  time  was 
comfortably  seated  in  a  cushioned  basket- 
chair,  sipping  her  own  cup  of  tea,  gave  him 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt  when  she  wondered 
if  he  was  not  really  distinguished  and  aristo- 
[58] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
cratic-looking.  He  was  really  neither,  but 
was  well  built  and  well-dressed,  and  had 
good  grayish-brown  eyes,  about  the  colour 
of  his  grayish-brown  hair.  Among  these 
amiably  worldly  people,  who  were  not  in 
the  least  moved  by  an  altruistic  prompting, 
Emily's  greatest  capital  consisted  in  the  fact 
that  she  did  not  expect  to  be  taken  the  least 
notice  of.  She  was  not  aware  that  it  was 
her  capital,  because  the  fact  was  so  wholly 
a  part  of  the  simple  contentedness  of  her 
nature  that  she  had  not  thought  about  it  at 
all.  The  truth  was  that  she  found  all  her 
entertainment  and  occupation  in  being  an 
audience  or  a  spectator. 

It    did    not  occur   to   her  to   notice  that, 

when  the  guests  were  presented  to  him,  Lord 

Walderhurst   barely  glanced    at    her    surface 

as    he  bowed,  and  could   scarcely  be  said  to 

[59] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
forget  her  existence  the  next  second,  because 
he  had  hardly  gone  to  the  length  of  recog- 
nising it.  As  she  enjoyed  her  extremely 
nice  cup  of  tea  and  little  buttered  scone, 
she  also  enjoyed  looking  at  his  Lordship 
discreetly,  and  trying  to  make  an  innocent 
summing  up  of  his  mental  attitudes. 

Lady  Maria  seemed  to  like  him  and  to  be 
pleased  to  see  him.  He  himself  seemed, 
in  an  undemonstrative  way,  to  like  Lady 
Maria.  He  also  was  evidently  glad  to  get 
his  tea,  and  enjoved  it  as  he  sat  at  his  cousin's 
side.  He  did  not  pay  very  much  attention 
to  any  one  else.  Emily  was  slightly  dis- 
appointed to  see  that  he  did  not  glance  at 
the  beauty  and  the  Borzoi  more  than  twice, 
and  then  that  his  examination  seemed  as 
much  for  the  Borzoi  as  for  the  beauty. 
She  could  not  help  also  observing  that  since 
[60] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
he  had  joined  the  circle  it  had  become  more 
animated,  so  far  at  least  as  the  female  mem- 
bers were  concerned.  She  could  not  help 
remembering  Lady  Maria's  remark  about 
the  effect  he  produced  on  women  when  he 
entered  a  room.  Several  interesting  or 
sparkling  speeches  had  already  been  made. 
There  was  a  little  more  laughter  and  chat- 
tiness,  which  somehow  it  seemed  to  be  quite 
open  to  Lord  Walderhurst  to  enjoy,  though 
it  was  not  exactly  addressed  to  him.  Miss 
Cora  Brooke,  however,  devoted  herself  to  a 
young  man  in  white  flannels  with  an  air  of 
tennis  about  him.  She  sat  a  little  apart  and 
talked  to  him  in  a  voice  soft  enough  to 
even  exclude  Lord  Walderhurst.  Presently 
she  and  her  companion  got  up  and  sauntered 
away.  They  went  down  the  broad  flight 
of  ancient  stone  steps  which  led  to  the  ten- 
[61] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
nis-court,  lying  in  full  view  below  the  lawn. 
There  they  began  to  play  tennis.  Miss 
Brooke  skimmed  and  darted  about  like  a 
swallow.  The  swirl  of  her  lace  petticoats 
was  most  attractive. 

"  That  girl  ought  not  to  play  tennis  in 
shoes  with  ridiculous  heels,"  remarked  Lord 
Walderhurst.  "She  will  spoil  the  court." 

Lady  Maria  broke  into  a  little  chuckle. 

"  She  wanted  to  play  at  this  particular 
moment,"  she  said.  "  And  as  she  has  only 
just  arrived,  it  did  not  occur  to  her  to  come 
out  to  tea  in  tennis-shoes." 

"  She  '11  spoil  the  court  all  the  same,"  said 
the  marquis.  "  What  clothes  !  It 's  amaz- 
ing how  girls  dress  now." 

"  I  wish  I  had  such  clothes,"  answered 
Lady  Maria,  and  she  chuckled  again. 

11  She  's  got  beautiful  feet." 
[62] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

"  She 's  got  Louis  Quinze  heels,"  re- 
turned his  Lordship. 

At  all  events,  Emily  Fox-Seton  thought 
Miss  Brooke  seemed  to  intend  to  rather  keep 
out  of  his  way  and  to  practise  no  delicate 
allurements.  When  her  tennis-playing  was 
at  an  end,  she  sauntered  about  the  lawn 
and  terraces  with  her  companion,  tilting  her 
parasol  prettily  over  her  shoulder,  so  that  it 
formed  an  entrancing  background  to  her  face 
and  head.  She  seemed  to  be  entertaining  the 
young  man.  His  big  laugh  and  the  silver 
music  of  her  own  lighter  merriment  rang  out 
a  little  tantalisingly. 

"  I  wonder  what  Cora  is  saying,"  said 
Mrs.  Brooke  to  the  group  at  large.  "She 
always  makes  men  laugh  so." 

Emily  Fox-Seton  felt  an  interest  herself, 
the  merriment  sounded  so  attractive.  She 
[63] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
wondered  if  perhaps  to  a  man  who  had  been 
so  much  run  after  a  girl  who  took  no  notice 
of  his  presence  and  amused  other  men  so 
much  might  not  assume  an  agreeable  aspect. 

But  he  took  more  notice  of  Lady  Agatha 
Slade  than  of  any  one  else  that  evening. 
She  was  placed  next  to  him  at  dinner,  and 
she  really  was  radiant  to  look  upon  in  palest 
green  chiffon.  She  had  an  exquisite  little  head, 
with  soft  hair  piled  with  wondrous  lightness 
upon  it,  and  her  long  little  neck  swayed  like 
the  stem  of  a  flower.  She  was  lovely  enough 
to  arouse  in  the  beholder's  mind  the  antici- 
pation of  her  being  silly,  but  she  was  not 
silly  at  all. 

Lady  Maria  commented  upon  that  fact  to 
Miss  Fox-Seton  when  they  met  in  her  bed- 
room late  that  night.  Lady  Maria  liked  to 
talk  and  be  talked  to  for  half  an  hour  after 
[64] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
the  day  was  over,  and  Emily  Fox-Seton's 
admiring  interest  in  all  she  said  she  found  at 
once  stimulating  and  soothing.  Her  Lady- 
ship was  an  old  woman  who  indulged  and 
inspired  herself  with  an  Epicurean  wisdom. 
Though  she  would  not  have  stupid  people 
about  her,  she  did  not  always  want  very 
clever  ones. 

"  They  give  me  too  much  exercise,"  she 
said.  "  The  epigrammatic  ones  keep  me 
always  jumping  over  fences.  Besides,  I  like 
to  make  all  the  epigrams  myself." 

Emily  Fox-Seton  struck  a  happy  mean, 
and  she  was  a  genuine  admirer.  She  was 
intelligent  enough  not  to  spoil  the  point  of 
an  epigram  when  she  repeated  it,  and  she 
might  be  relied  upon  to  repeat  it  and  give 
all  the  glory  to  its  originator.  Lady  Maria 
knew  there  were  people  who,  hearing  your 
5  [65] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
good  things,  appropriated  them  without  a 
scruple. 

To-night  she  said  a  number  of  good 
things  to  Emily  in  summing  up  her  guests 
and  their  characteristics. 

"  Walderhurst  has  been  to  me  three  times 
when  I  made  sure  that  he  would  not  escape 
without  a  new  marchioness  attached  to  him. 
I  should  think  he  would  take  one  to  put  an 
end  to  the  annoyance  of  dangling  unplucked 
upon  the  bough.  A  man  in  his  position,  if 
he  has  character  enough  to  choose,  can 
prevent  even  his  wife's  being  a  nuisance. 
He  can  give  her  a  good  house,  hang  the 
family  diamonds  on  her,  supply  a  decent 
elderly  woman  as  a  sort  of  lady-in-waiting 
and  turn  her  into  the  paddock  to  kick  up 
her  heels  within  the  limits  of  decorum.  His 
own  rooms  can  be  sacred  to  him.  He  has  his 
[66] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

clubs  and  his  personal  interests.  Husbands 
and  wives  annoy  each  other  very  little  in 
these  days.  Married  life  has  become  com- 
paratively decent." 

"  I  should  think  his  wife  might  be  very 
happy,"  commented  Emily.  "  He  looks 
very  kind." 

"  I  don't  know  whether  he  is  kind  or  not. 
It  has  never  been  necessary  for  me  to  borrow 
money  from  him." 

Lady  Maria  was  capable  of  saying  odd 
things  in  her  refined  little  drawling  voice. 

"  He  's  more  respectable  than  most  men 
of  his  age.  The  diamonds  are  magnificent, 
and  he  not  only  has  three  superb  places,  but 
has  money  enough  to  keep  them  up.  Now, 
there  are  three  aspirants  at  Mallowe  in  the 
present  party.  Of  course  you  can  guess 
who  they  are,  Emily  ?  " 
[67] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

Emily  Fox-Seton  almost  blushed.  She 
felt  a  little  indelicate. 

"  Lady  Agatha  would  be  very  suitable,"  she 
said.  "  And  Mrs.  Ralph  is  very  clever,  of 
course.  And  Miss  Brooke  is  really  pretty." 

Lady  Maria  gave  vent  to  her  small 
chuckle. 

"  Mrs.  Ralph  is  the  kind  of  woman  who 
means  business.  She  '11  corner  Walderhurst 
and  talk  literature  and  roll  her  eyes  at  him 
until  he  hates  her.  These  writing  women, 
who  are  intensely  pleased  with  themselves, 
if  they  have  some  good  looks  into  the  bar- 
gain, believe  themselves  capable  of  marry- 
ing any  one.  Mrs.  Ralph  has  fine  eyes 
and  rolls  them.  Walderhurst  won't  be 
ogled.  The  Brooke  girl  is  sharper  than 
Ralph.  She  was  very  sharp  this  afternoon. 
She  began  at  once." 

[68] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
"I  —  I  did  n't  see  her "  —  wondering. 
"  Yes,  you  did ;  but  you  did  n't  under- 
stand. The  tennis,  and  the  laughing  with 
young  Heriot  on  the  terrace !  She  is  going 
to  be  the  piquant  young  woman  who  aggra- 
vates by  indifference,  and  disdains  rank  and 
splendour;  the  kind  of  girl  who  has  her 
innings  in  novelettes  —  but  not  out  of  them. 
The  successful  women  are  those  who  know 
how  to  toady  in  the  right  way  and  not  obvi- 
ously. Walderhurst  has  far  too  good  an 
opinion  of  himself  to  be  attracted  by  a  girl 
who  is  making  up  to  another  man :  he 's 
not  five-and-twenty." 

Emily  Fox-Seton  was  reminded,  in  spite 
of  herself,  of  Mrs.  Brooke's  plaint :  "  Don't 
be  too  indifferent,  Cora."  She  did  not  want 
to  recall  it  exactly,  because  she  thought  the 
Brookes  agreeable  and  would  have  preferred 
[69] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
to  think  them  disinterested.  But,  after  all, 
she  reflected,  how  natural  that  a  girl  who 
was  so  pretty  should  feel  that  the  Mar- 
quis of  Walderhurst  represented  prospects. 
Chiefly,  however,  she  was  filled  with  ad- 
miration at  Lady  Maria's  cleverness. 

"  How  wonderfully  you  observe  every- 
thing, Lady  Maria  !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  How 
wonderfully  !  " 

"  I  have  had  forty-seven  seasons  in  Lon- 
don. That's  a  good  many,  you  know. 
Forty-seven  seasons  of  debutantes  and 
mothers  tend  toward  enlightenment.  Now 
there  is  Agatha  Slade,  poor  girl !  She  's  of 
a  kind  I  know  by  heart.  With  birth  and 
beauty,  she  is  perfectly  helpless.  Her  peo- 
ple are  poor  enough  to  be  entitled  to  aid 
from  the  Chanty  Organisation,  and  they 
have  had  the  indecency  to  present  them- 
[70] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
selves  with  six  daughters  —  six!  All  with 
delicate  skins  and  delicate  little  noses  and 
heavenly  eyes.  Most  men  can't  afford  them, 
and  they  can't  afford  most  men.  As  soon 
as  Agatha  begins  to  go  off  a  little,  she  will 
have  to  step  aside,  if  she  has  not  married. 
The  others  must  be  allowed  their  chance. 
Agatha  has  had  the  advertising  of  the  illus- 
trated papers  this  season,  and  she  has  gone 
well.  In  these  days  a  new  beauty  is  adver- 
tised like  a  new  soap.  They  have  n't  given 
them  sandwich-men  in  the  streets,  but  that 
is  about  all  that  has  been  denied  them.  But 
Agatha  has  not  had  any  special  offer,  and  I 
know  both  she  and  her  mother  are  a  little 
frightened.  Alix  must  come  out  next  sea- 
son, and  they  can't  afford  frocks  for  two. 
Agatha  will  have  to  be  sent  to  their  place 
in  Ireland,  and  to  be  sent  to  Castle  Clare  is 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
almost  like  being  sent  to  the  Bastille.  She  '11 
never  get  out  alive.  She'll  have  to  stay 
there  and  see  herself  grow  thin  instead  of 
slim,  and  colourless  instead  of  fair.  Her  little 
nose  will  grow  sharp,  and  she  will  lose  her 
hair  by  degrees." 

"  Oh  !  "  Emily  Fox-Seton  gave  forth  sym- 
pathetically. "  What  a  pity  that  would  be ! 
I  thought  —  I  really  thought  —  Lord  Wal- 
derhurst  seemed  to  admire  her." 

"Oh,  every  one  admires  her,  for  that 
matter;  but  if  they  go  no  further  that  will 
not  save  her  from  the  Bastille,  poor  thing. 
There,  Emily;  we  must  go  to  bed.  We 
have  talked  enough." 


O  awaken  in  a  still,  de- 
licious room,  with  the 
summer  morning  sun- 
shine breaking  softly 
into  it  through  leafy 
greenness,  was  a  de- 
lightful thing  to  Miss  Fox-Seton,  who  was 
accustomed  to  opening  her  eyes  upon  four 
walls  covered  with  cheap  paper,  to  the  sound  of 
outside  hammerings,  and  the  rattle  and  heavy 
roll  of  wheels.  In  a  building  at  the  back  of 
her  bed-sitting-room  there  lived  a  man  whose 
occupation,  beginning  early  in  the  morning, 
involved  banging  of  a  persistent  nature. 
[73] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
She  awakened  to  her  first  day  at  Mallowe, 
stretching  herself  luxuriously,  with  the  smile 
of  a  child.  She  was  so  thankful  for  the  soft- 
ness of  her  lavender-fragrant  bed,  and  so  de- 
lighted with  the  lovely  freshness  of  her 
chintz-hung  room.  As  she  lay  upon  her 
pillow,  she  could  see  the  boughs  of  the  trees, 
and  hear  the  chatter  of  darting  starlings. 
When  her  morning  tea  was  brought,  it 
seemed  like  nectar  to  her.  She  was  a  per- 
fectly healthy  woman,  with  a  palate  as  un- 
spoiled as  that  of  a  six-year-old  child  in  the 
nursery.  Her  enjoyment  of  all  things  was 
so  normal  as  to  be  in  her  day  and  time  an 
absolute  abnormality. 

She  rose  and  dressed    at  once,  eager  for 

the    open  air    and   sunshine.     She   was    out 

upon  the  lawn  before  any  one  else  but  the 

Borzoi,  which  rose  from  beneath  a  tree  and 

[74] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
came  with  stately  walk  toward  her.  The 
air  was  exquisite,  the  broad,  beautiful  stretch 
of  view  lay  warm  in  the  sun,  the  masses  of 
flowers  on  the  herbaceous  borders  showed 
leaves  and  flower-cups  adorned  with  glitter- 
ing drops  of  dew.  She  walked  across  the 
spacious  sweep  of  short-cropped  sod,  and 
gazed  enraptured  at  the  country  spread  out 
below.  She  could  have  kissed  the  soft 
white  sheep  dotting  the  fields  and  lying  in 
gentle,  huddled  groups  under  the  trees. 

"The  darlings!  "  she  said,  in  a  little,  effu- 
sive outburst. 

She  talked  to  the  dog  and  fondled  him. 
He  seemed  to  understand  her  mood,  and 
pressed  close  against  her  gown  when  she 
stopped.  They  walked  together  about  the 
gardens,  and  presently  picked  up  an  exuber- 
ant retriever,  which  bounded  and  wriggled 
[75] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
and  at  once  settled  into  a  steady  trot  beside 
them.  Emily  adored  the  flowers  as  she 
walked  by  their  beds,  and  at  intervals 
stopped  to  bury  her  face  in  bunches  of 
spicy  things.  She  was  so  happy  that  the 
joy  in  her  hazel  eyes  was  pathetic. 

She  was  startled,  as  she  turned  into  a 
rather  narrow  rose-walk,  to  see  Lord  \Val- 
derhurst  coming  toward  her.  He  looked 
exceedingly  clean  in  his  fresh  light  knicker- 
bocker  suit,  which  was  rather  becoming  to 
him.  A  gardener  was  walking  behind,  evi- 
dently gathering  roses  for  him,  which  he 
put  into  a  shallow  basket.  Emily  Fox-Seton 
cast  about  for  a  suitable  remark  to  make,  if 
he  should  chance  to  stop  to  speak  to  her. 
She  consoled  herself  with  the  thought  that 
there  were  things  she  really  wanted  to  say 
about  the  beauty  of  the  gardens,  and  certain 
[76] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
clumps  of  heavenly-blue  campanulas,  which 
seemed  made  a  feature  of  in  the  herbaceous 
borders.  It  was  so  much  nicer  not  to  be 
obliged  to  invent  observations.  But  his  lord- 
ship did  not  stop  to  speak  to  her.  He  was 
interested  in  his  roses  (which,  she  heard  after- 
ward, were  to  be  sent  to  town  to  an  invalid 
friend),  and  as  she  drew  near,  he  turned  aside 
to  speak  to  the  gardener.  As  Emily  was  just 
passing  him  when  he  turned  again,  and  as 
the  passage  was  narrow,  he  found  himself 
unexpectedly  gazing  into  her  face. 

Being  nearly  of  the  same  height,  they 
were  so  near  each  other  that  it  was  a  little 
awkward. 

"  I  beg  pardon,"  he  said,  stepping  back  a 
pace  and  lifting  his  straw  hat. 

But  he  did  not  say,  "  I  beg  pardon,  Miss 
Fox-Seton,"  and  Emily  knew  that  he  had 
[77] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
not  recognised  her  again,  and  had  not  the 
remotest  idea  who  she  was  or  where  she 
came  from. 

She  passed  him  with  her  agreeable, 
friendly  smile,  and  there  returned  to  her 
mind  Lady  Maria's  remarks  of  the  night 
before. 

"  To  think  that  if  he  married  poor  pretty 
Lady  Agatha  she  will  be  mistress  of  three 
places  quite  as  beautiful  as  Mallowe,  three 
lovely  old  houses,  three  sets  of  gardens,  with 
thousands  of  flowers  to  bloom  every  year  ! 
How  nice  it  would  be  for  her !  She  is  so 
lovely  that  it  seems  as  if  he  must  fall  in  love 
with  her.  Then,  if  she  was  Marchioness 
of  Walderhurst,  she  could  do  so  much  for 
her  sisters." 

After  breakfast  she  spent  her  morning  in 
doing  a  hundred  things  for  Lady  Maria. 
[78] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
She  wrote  notes  for  her,  and  helped  her  to 
arrange  plans  for  the  entertainment  of  her 
visitors.  She  was  very  busy  and  happy.  In 
the  afternoon  she  drove  across  the  moor  to 
Maundell,  a  village  on  the  other  side  of  it. 
She  really  went  on  an  errand  for  her  host- 
ess, but  as  she  was  fond  of  driving  and  the 
brown  cob  was  a  beauty,  she  felt  that  she 
was  being  given  a  treat  on  a  level  with  the 
rest  of  her  ladyship's  generous  hospitalities. 
She  drove  well,  and  her  straight,  strong 
figure  showed  to  much  advantage  on  the 
high  seat  of  the  cart.  Lord  Walderhurst 
himself  commented  on  her  as  he  saw  her 
drive  away. 

"  She  has  a  nice,  flat,  straight   back,  that 

woman,"     he    remarked     to     Lady     Maria. 

"  What    is    her    name  ?      One  never    hears 

people's   names  when  one   is  introduced." 

[79] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
"  Her   name    is    Emily    Fox-Seton,"    her 
ladyship     answered,     "  and     she  's     a     nice 
creature." 

"That  would  be  an  inhuman  thing  to  say 
to  most  men,  but  if  one  is  a  thoroughly  self- 
ish being,  and  has  some  knowledge  of  one's 
own  character,  one  sees  that  a  nice  creature 
might  be  a  nice  companion." 

"  You  are  quite  right,"  was  Lady  Maria's 
reply,  as  she  held  up  her  lorgnette  and 
watched  the  cart  spin  down  the  avenue.  "  I 
am  selfish  myself,  and  I  realise  that  is  the 
reason  why  Emily  Fox-Seton  is  becoming 
the  lodestar  of  my  existence.  There  is  such 
comfort  in  being  pandered  to  by  a  person 
who  is  not  even  aware  that  she  is  pandering. 
She  does  n't  suspect  that  she  is  entitled  to 
thanks  for  it." 

That  evening   Mrs.   Ralph  came  shining 
[80] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
to  dinner  in  amber  satin,  which  seemed  to 
possess  some  quality  of  stimulating  her  to 
brilliance.  She  was  witty  enough  to  collect 
an  audience,  and  Lord  Walderhurst  was 
drawn  within  it.  This  was  Mrs.  Ralph's 
evening.  When  the  men  returned  to  the 
drawing-room,  she  secured  his  lordship  at 
once  and  managed  to  keep  him.  She  was  a 
woman  who  could  talk  pretty  well,  and  per- 
haps Lord  Walderhurst  was  amused.  Emily 
Fox-Seton  was  not  quite  sure  that  he  was, 
but  at  least  he  listened.  Lady  Agatha  Slade 
looked  a  little  listless  and  pale.  Lovely  as 
she  was,  she  did  not  always  collect  an  audi- 
ence, and  this  evening  she  said  she  had  a 
headache.  She  actually  crossed  the  room, 
and  taking  a  seat  by  Miss  Emily  Fox-Seton, 
began  to  talk  to  her  about  Lady  Maria's 
charity-knitting  which  she  had  taken  up. 
6  [8.] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
Emily  was  so  gratified  that  she  found  conver- 
sation easy.  She  did  not  realise  that  at  that 
particular  moment  she  was  a  most  agreeable 
and  comforting  companion  for  Agatha  Slade. 
She  had  heard  so  much  of  her  beauty  during 
the  season,  and  remembered  so  many  little 
things  that  a  girl  who  was  a  thought  de- 
pressed might  like  to  hear  referred  to  again. 
Sometimes  to  Agatha  the  balls  where  people 
had  collected  in  groups  to  watch  her  dancing, 
the  flattering  speeches  she  had  heard,  the  daz- 
zling hopes  which  had  been  raised,  seemed  a 
little  unreal,  as  if,  after  all,  they  could  have 
been  only  dreams.  This  was  particularly  so, 
of  course,  when  life  had  dulled  for  a  while 
and  the  atmosphere  of  unpaid  bills  became 
heavy  at  home.  It  was  so  to-day,  because 
the  girl  had  received  a  long,  anxious  letter 
from  her  mother,  in  which  much  was  said 
[82] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
of  the  importance  of  an  early  preparation 
for  the  presentation  of  Alix,  who  had  really 
been  kept  back  a  year,  and  was  in  fact 
nearer  twenty  than  nineteen. 

"  If  we  were  not  in  Debrett  and  Burke, 
one  might  be  reserved  about  such  matters," 
poor  Lady  Claraway  wrote ;  "  but  what  is 
one  to  do  when  all  the  world  can  buy  one's 
daughters'  ages  at  the  booksellers'  ?  " 

Miss  Fox-Seton  had  seen  Lady  Agatha's 
portrait  at  the  Academy  and  the  way  in 
which  people  had  crowded  about  it.  She 
had  chanced  to  hear  comments  also,  and  she 
agreed  with  a  number  of  persons  who  had  not 
thought  the  picture  did  the  original  justice. 

"  Sir  Bruce  Norman  was  standing  by  me 

with  an  elderly  lady  the  first  time  I  saw  it," 

she  said,  as  she  turned  a  new  row  of  the  big 

white-wool    scarf  her    hostess   was   knitting 

[83] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
for  a  Deep-Sea  Fishermen's  Charity.  "  He 
really  looked  quite  annoyed.  I  heard  him 
say  :  c  It  is  not  good  at  all.  She  is  far,  far 
lovelier.  Her  eyes  are  like  blue  flowers.' 
The  moment  I  saw  you,  I  found  myself 
looking  at  your  eyes.  I  hope  I  did  n't  seem 
rude." 

Lady  Agatha  smiled.  She  had  flushed 
delicately,  and  took  up  in  her  slim  hand  a 
skein  of  the  white  wool. 

"  There  are  some  people  who  are  never 
rude,"  she  sweetly  said,  "  and  you  are  one  of 
them,  I  am  sure.  That  knitting  looks  nice. 
I  wonder  if  I  could  make  a  comforter  for  a 
deep-sea  fisherman." 

"  If  it  would  amuse  you  to  try,"  Emily 
answered,  "  I  will  begin  one  for  you.  Lady 
Maria  has  several  pairs  of  wooden  needles. 
Shall  I  ?  " 

CH] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
"  Do,  please.      How  kind  of  you  !  " 
In    a    pause    of    her   conversation,    Mrs. 
Ralph,  a  little  later,  looked  across  the  room 
at  Emily  Fox-Seton  bending  over  Lady  Agatha 
and  the  knitting,  as  she  gave  her  instructions. 
"  What  a  good-natured  creature  that  is  !  " 
she  said. 

Lord  Walderhurst  lifted  his  monocle  and 
inserted  it  in  his  unillumined  eye.  He  also 
looked  across  the  room.  Emily  wore  the 
black  evening  dress  which  gave  such  oppor- 
tunities to  her  square  white  shoulders  and 
firm  column  of  throat  -,  the  country  air  and 
sun  had  deepened  the  colour  on  her  cheek, 
and  the  light  of  the  nearest  lamp  fell  kindly 
on  the  big  twist  of  her  nut-brown  hair,  and 
burnished  it.  She  looked  soft  and  warm, 
and  so  generously  interested  in  her  pupil's 
progress  that  she  was  rather  sweet. 
[85] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

Lord  Walderhurst  simply  looked  at  her. 
He  was  a  man  of  but  few  words.  Women 
who  were  sprightly  found  him  somewhat  un- 
responsive. In  fact,  he  was  aware  that  a 
man  in  his  position  need  not  exert  himself. 
The  women  themselves  would  talk.  They 
wanted  to  talk  because  they  wanted  him  to 
hear  them. 

Mrs.  Ralph  talked. 

"  She  is  the  most  primeval  person  I  know. 
She  accepts  her  fate  without  a  trace  of  re- 
sentment; she  simply  accepts  it." 

"  What  is  her  fate  ?  "  asked  Lord  Walder- 
hurst, still  gazing  in  his  unbiassed  manner 
through  his  monocle,  and  not  turning  his 
head  as  he  spoke. 

"  It  is  her  fate  to  be  a  woman  who  is  per- 
fectly well  born,  and  who  is  as  penniless  as 
a  charwoman,  and  works  like  one.  She  is  at 
[86] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

the  beck  and  call  of  any  one  who  will  give 
her  an  odd  job  to  earn  a  meal  with.  That 
is  one  of  the  new  ways  women  have  found 
of  making  a  living." 

"  Good  skin,"  remarked  Lord  Walder- 
hurst,  irrelevantly.  "  Good  hair  —  quite  a 
lot." 

"  She  has  some  of  the  nicest  blood  in 
England  in  her  veins,  and  she  engaged  my 
last  cook  for  me,"  said  Mrs.  Ralph. 

"  Hope  she  was  a  good  cook." 

u  Very.  Emily  Fox-Seton  has  a  faculty 
of  finding  decent  people.  I  believe  it  is 
because  she  is  so  decent  herself"  —  with  a 
little  laugh. 

"Looks  quite  decent,"  commented  Wal- 
derhurst. 

The  knitting  was  getting  on  famously. 

"  It  was  odd  you  should  see  Sir  Bruce 
[87] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
Norman  that  day,"  Agatha  Slade  was  saying. 
"  It  must  have  been  just  before  he  was  called 
away  to  India." 

"  It  was.  He  sailed  the  next  day.  I  hap- 
pen to  know,  because  some  friends  of  mine 
met  me  only  a  few  yards  from  your  picture 
and  began  to  talk  about  him.  I  had  not 
known  before  that  he  was  so  rich.  I  had 
not  heard  about  his  collieries  in  Lancashire. 
Oh!" — opening  her  big  eyes  in  heartfelt 
yearning,  — "  how  I  wish  I  owned  a  colliery! 
It  must  be  so  nice  to  be  rich !  " 

"  I  never  was  rich,"  answered  Lady  Aga- 
tha, with  a  bitter  little  sigh.  "I  know  it 
is  hideous  to  be  poor." 

"  /  never  was  rich,"  said  Emily,  "  and  I 
never  shall  be.  You  "  —  a  little  shyly  — 
"  are  so  different." 

Lady  Agatha  flushed  delicately  again. 
[88] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

Emily  Fox-Seton  made  a  gentle  little  joke. 
"  You  have  eyes  like  blue  flowers,"  she  said. 

Lady  Agatha  lifted  the  eyes  like  blue 
flowers,  arid  they  were  pathetic. 

"  Oh  !  "  she  gave  forth  almost  impetu- 
ously, "  sometimes  it  seems  as  if  it  does  not 
matter  whether  one  has  eyes  or  not." 

It  was  a  pleasure  to  Emily  Fox-Seton  to 
realise  that  after  this  the  beauty  seemed  to 
be  rather  drawn  toward  her.  Their  ac- 
quaintance became  almost  a  sort  of  intimacy 
over  the  wool  scarf  for  the  deep-sea  fisher- 
man, which  was  taken  up  and  laid  down, 
and  even  carried  out  on  the  lawn  and  left 
under  the  trees  for  the  footmen  to  restore 
when  they  brought  in  the  rugs  and  cushions. 
Lady  Maria  was  amusing  herself  with  the 
making  of  knitted  scarfs  and  helmets  just 
now,  and  bits  of  white  or  gray  knitting  were 
[89] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
the  fashion  at  Mallowe.  Once  Agatha 
brought  hers  to  Emily's  room  in  the  after- 
noon to  ask  that  a  dropped  stitch  might  be 
taken  up,  and  this  established  a  sort  of  pre- 
cedent. Afterward  they  began  to  exchange 
visits. 

The  strenuousness  of  things  was  becom- 
ing, in  fact,  almost  too  much  for  Lady 
Agatha.  Most  unpleasant  things  were  hap- 
pening at  home,  and  occasionally  Castle 
Clare  loomed  up  grayly  in  the  distance  like 
a  spectre.  Certain  tradespeople  who  ought, 
in  Lady  Claraway's  opinion,  to  have  kept 
quiet  and  waited  in  patience  until  things 
became  better,  were  becoming  hideously 
persistent.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  Alix 
next  season  must  be  provided  for,  it  was 
most  awkward.  A  girl  could  not  be  pre- 
sented and  properly  launched  in  the  world, 
[90] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

in  a  way  which  would  give  her  a  proper 
chance,  without  expenditure.  To  the  Clara- 
ways  expenditure  meant  credit,  and  there 
were  blots  as  of  tears  on  the  letters  in  which 
Lady  Claraway  reiterated  that  the  trades- 
people were  behaving  horribly.  Sometimes, 
she  said  once  in  desperation,  things  looked 
as  if  they  would  all  be  obliged  to  shut  them- 
selves up  in  Castle  Clare  to  retrench  ;  and 
then  what  was  to  become  of  Alix  and  her 
season  ?  And  there  were  Millicent  and 
Hilda  and  Eve. 

More  than  once  there  was  the  mist  of 
tears  in  the  flower-blue  eyes  when  Lady 
Agatha  came  to  talk.  Confidence  between 
two  women  establishes  itself  through  pro- 
cesses at  once  subtle  and  simple.  Emily 
Fox-Seton  could  not  have  told  when  she  first 
began  to  know  that  the  beauty  was  troubled 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

and  distressed  ;  Lady  Agatha  did  not  know 
when  she  first  slipped  into  making  little  frank 
speeches  about  herself;  but  these  things  came 
about.  Agatha  found  something  like  com- 
fort in  her  acquaintance  with  the  big,  normal, 
artless  creature  —  something  which  actually 
raised  her  spirits  when  she  was  depressed. 
Emily  Fox-Seton  paid  constant  kindly  trib- 
ute to  her  charms,  and  helped  her  to  believe 
in  them.  When  she  was  with  her,  Agatha 
always  felt  that  she  really  was  lovely,  after 
all,  and  that  loveliness  was  a  great  capital. 
Emily  admired  and  revered  it  so,  and  evi- 
dently never  dreamed  of  doubting  its  om- 
nipotence. She  used  to  talk  as  if  any  girl 
who  was  a  beauty  was  a  potential  duchess. 
In  fact,  this  was  a  thing  she  quite  ingenu- 
ously believed.  She  had  not  lived  in  a  world 
where  marriage  was  a  thing  of  romance, 
[9*] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
and,  for  that  matter,  neither  had  Agatha. 
It  was  nice  if  a  girl  liked  the  man  who 
married  her,  but  if  he  was  a  well-behaved, 
agreeable  person,  of  good  means,  it  was 
natural  that  she  would  end  by  liking  him 
sufficiently ;  and  to  be  provided  for  com- 
fortably or  luxuriously  for  life,  and  not  left 
upon  one's  own  hands  or  one's  parents',  was 
a  thing  to  be  thankful  for  in  any  case.  It 
was  such  a  relief  to  everybody  to  know 
that  a  girl  was  "  settled,"  and  especially 
it  was  such  a  relief  to  the  girl  herself.  Even 
novels  and  plays  were  no  longer  fairy-stories 
of  entrancing  young  men  and  captivating 
young  women  who  fell  in  love  with  each 
other  in  the  first  chapter,  and  after  increas- 
ingly picturesque  incidents  were  married  in 
the  last  one  in  the  absolute  surety  of  be- 
ing blissfully  happy  forevermore.  Neither 
[93] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
Lady  Agatha  nor  Emily  had  been  brought 
up  on  this  order  of  literature,  nor  in  an  at- 
mosphere in  which  it  was  accepted  without 
reservation. 

They  had  both  had  hard  lives,  and  knew 
what  lay  before  them.  Agatha  knew  she 
must  make  a  marriage  or  fade  out  of  ex- 
istence in  prosaic  and  narrowed  dulness. 
Emily  knew  that  there  was  no  prospect  for 
her  of  desirable  marriage  at  all.  She  was 
too  poor,  too  entirely  unsupported  by  social 
surroundings,  and  not  sufficiently  radiant  to 
catch  the  roving  eye.  To  be  able  to  main- 
tain herself  decently,  to  be  given  an  occa- 
sional treat  by  her  more  fortunate  friends, 
and  to  be  allowed  by  fortune  to  present  to 
the  face  of  the  world  the  appearance  of  a 
woman  who  was  not  a  pauper,  was  all  she 
could  expect.  But  she  felt  that  Lady  Agatha 
[94] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
had  the  right  to  more.  She  did  not  reason 
the  matter  out  and  ask  herself  why  she  had 
the  right  to  more,  but  she  accepted  the  prop- 
osition as  a  fact.  She  was  ingenuously 
interested  in  her  fate,  and  affectionately 
sympathetic.  She  used  to  look  at  Lord 
\Valderhurst  quite  anxiously  at  times  when 
he  was  talking  to  the  girl.  An  anxious 
mother  could  scarcely  have  regarded  him 
with  a  greater  desire  to  analyse  his  senti- 
ments. The  match  would  be  such  a  fitting 
one.  He  would  make  such  an  excellent 
husband  —  and  there  were  three  places,  and 
the  diamonds  were  magnificent.  Lady  Maria 
had  described  to  her  a  certain  tiara  which 
she  frequently  pictured  to  herself  as  glitter- 
ing above  Agatha's  exquisite  low  brow.  It 
would  be  infinitely  more  becoming  to  her 
than  to  Miss  Brooke  or  Mrs.  Ralph,  though 
[95] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
either  of  them  would  have  worn  it  with  spirit. 
She  could  not  help  feeling  that  both  Mrs. 
Ralph's  brilliancy  and  Miss  Brooke's  in- 
souciant prettiness  were  not  unworthy  of 
being  counted  in  the  running,  but  Lady 
Agatha  seemed  somehow  so  much  more 
completely  the  thing  wanted.  She  was 
anxious  that  she  should  always  look  her  best, 
and  when  she  knew  that  disturbing  letters 
were  fretting  her,  and  saw  that  they  made 
her  look  pale  and  less  luminous,  she  tried 
to  raise  her  spirits. 

"  Suppose  we  take  a  brisk  walk,"  she 
would  say,  u  and  then  you  might  try  a 
little  nap.  You  look  a  little  tired." 

"  Oh,"  said  Agatha  one  day,  "  how  kind 
you  are  to  me !  I  believe  you  actually  care 
about  my  complexion  —  about  my  looking 
well." 

[96] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS     * 

"  Lord  Walderhurst  said  to  me  the  other 
day,"  was  Emily's  angelically  tactful  answer, 
"  that  you  were  the  only  woman  he  had  ever 
seen  who  always  looked  lovely." 

"  Did  he  ?  "  exclaimed  Lady  Agatha,  and 
flushed  sweetly.  "  Once  Sir  Bruce  Norman 
actually  said  that  to  me.  I  told  him  it  was 
the  nicest  thing  that  could  be  said  to  a 
woman.  It  is  all  the  nicer"  — with  a  sigh 
—  "because  it  isn't  really  true." 

"  I  am  sure  Lord  Walderhurst  believed  it 
true,"  Emily  said.  "  He  is  not  a  man  who 
talks,  you  know.  He  is  very  serious  and 
dignified." 

She  had  herself  a  reverence  and  admiration 
for  Lord  Walderhurst  bordering  on  tender 
awe.  He  was  indeed  a  well-mannered  per- 
son, of  whom  painful  things  were  not  said. 
He  also  conducted  himself  well  toward  his 
7  [97] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
tenantry,  and  was  patron  of  several  notable 
charities.  To  the  unexacting  and  innocently 
respectful  mind  of  Emily  Fox-Seton  this 
was  at  once  impressive  and  attractive.  She 
knew,  though  not  intimately,  many  noble 
personages  quite  unlike  him.  She  was  rather 
early  Victorian  and  touchingly  respectable. 

"  I  have  been  crying,"  confessed  Lady 
Agatha. 

"  I  was  afraid  so,  Lady  Agatha,"  said 
Emily. 

"  Things  are  getting  hopeless  in  Curzon 
Street.  I  had  a  letter  from  Millicent  this 
morning.  She  is  next  in  age  to  Alix,  and 
she  says  —  oh,  a  number  of  things.  When 
girls  see  everything  passing  by  them,  it 
makes  them  irritable.  Millicent  is  seven- 
teen, and  she  is  too  lovely.  Her  hair  is 
like  a  red-gold  cloak,  and  her  eyelashes  are 
[98] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
twice  as  long  as  mine."  She  sighed  again, 
and  her  lips,  which  were  like  curved  rose- 
petals,  unconcealedly  quivered.  "  They  were 
all  so  cross  about  Sir  Bruce  Norman  going 
to  India,"  she  added. 

"  He  will  come  back,"  said  Emily,  be- 
nignly ;  "  but  he  may  be  too  late.  Has 
he  "  —  ingenuously  —  "  seen  Alix  ?  " 

Agatha  flushed  oddly  this  time.  Her  deli- 
cate skin  registered  every  emotion  exqui- 
sitely. "  He  has  seen  her,  but  she  was  in 
the  school-room,  and  —  I  don't  think  —  " 

She  did  not  finish,  but  stopped  un- 
easily, and  sat  and  gazed  out  of  the  open 
window  into  the  park.  She  did  not  look 
happy. 

The  episode  of  Sir  Bruce  Norman  was 
brief  and  even  vague.  It  had  begun  well. 
Sir  Bruce  had  met  the  beauty  at  a  ball,  and 
[99] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
they  had  danced  together  more  than  once. 
Sir  Bruce  had  attractions  other  than  his  old 
baronetcy  and  his  coal-mines.  He  was  a 
good-looking  person,  with  a  laughing  brown 
eye  and  a  nice  wit.  He  had  danced  charm- 
ingly and  paid  gay  compliments.  He  would 
have  done  immensely  well.  Agatha  had 
liked  him.  Emily  sometimes  thought  she 
had  liked  him  very  much.  Her  mother  had 
liked  him  and  had  thought  he  was  attracted. 
But  after  a  number  of  occasions  of  agreeable 
meetings,  they  had  encountered  each  other 
on  the  lawn  at  Goodwood,  and  he  had  an- 
nounced that  he  was  going  to  India.  Forth- 
with he  had  gone,  and  Emily  had  gathered 
that  somehow  Lady  Agatha  had  been  con- 
sidered somewhat  to  blame.  Her  people 
were  not  vulgar  enough  to  express  this 
frankly,  but  she  had  felt  it.  Her  younger 
[100] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
sisters  had,  upon  the  whole,  made  her  feel 
it  most.  It  had  been  borne  in  upon  her  that 
if  Alix,  or  Millicent  with  the  red-gold  cloak, 
or  even  Eve,  who  was  a  gipsy,  had  been 
given  such  a  season  and  such  Doucet  frocks, 
they  would  have  combined  them  with  their 
wonderful  complexions  and  lovely  little  chins 
and  noses  in  such  a  manner  as  would  at 
least  have  prevented  desirable  acquaintances 
from  feeling  free  to  take  P.  and  O.  steamers 
to  Bombay. 

In  her  letter  of  this  morning,  Millicent's 
temper  had  indeed  got  somewhat  the  better 
of  her  taste  and  breeding,  and  lovely  Agatha 
had  cried  large  tears.  So  it  was  comforting 
to  be  told  that  Lord  Walderhurst  had  said 
such  an  extremely  amiable  thing.  If  he 
was  not  young,  he  was  really  very  nice,  and 
there  were  exalted  persons  who  absolutely 
[101] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
had  rather  a  fad  for  him.  It  would  be  ex- 
ceptionally brilliant. 

The  brisk  walk  was  taken,  and  Lady 
Agatha  returned  from  it  blooming.  She  was 
adorable  at  dinner,  and  in  the  evening  gath- 
ered an  actual  court  about  her.  She  was  all 
in  pink,  and  a  wreath  of  little  pink  wild  roses 
lay  close  about  her  head,  making  her,  with 
her  tall  young  slimness,  look  like  a  Botti- 
celli nymph.  Emily  saw  that  Lord  Walder- 
hurst  looked  at  her  a  great  deal.  He  sat  on 
an  extraordinarily  comfortable  corner  seat, 
and  stared  through  his  monocle. 

Lady  Maria  always  gave  her  Emily  plenty 
to  do.  She  had  a  nice  taste  in  floral  ar- 
rangement, and  early  in  her  visit  it  had 
fallen  into  her  hands  as  a  duty  to  u  do " 
the  flowers. 

The  next  morning  she  was  in  the  gardens 

[102] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
early,  gathering  roses  with  the  dew  on  them, 
and  was  in  the  act  of  cutting  some  adorable 
"  Mrs.  Sharman  Crawfords,"  when  she  found 
it  behoved  her  to  let  down  her  carefully 
tucked  up  petticoats,  as  the  Marquis  of  Wal- 
derhurst  was  walking  straight  toward  her. 
An  instinct  told  her  that  he  wanted  to  talk 
to  her  about  Lady  Agatha  Slade. 

"  You  get  up  earlier  than  Lady  Agatha," 
he  remarked,  after  he  had  wished  her  "  Good 
morning." 

"  She  is  oftener  invited  to  the  country 
than  I  am,"  she  answered.  "When  I  have 
a  country  holiday,  I  want  to  spend  every 
moment  of  it  out  of  doors.  And  the  morn- 
ings are  so  lovely.  They  are  not  like  this 
in  Mortimer  Street." 

"  Do  you  live  in  Mortimer  Street  ?  " 

«  Yes." 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

"  Do  you  like  it  ?  " 

"  I  am  very  comfortable.  I  am  fortunate 
in  having  a  nice  landlady.  She  and  her 
daughter  are  very  kind  to  me." 

The  morning  was  indeed  heavenly.  The 
masses  of  flowers  were  drenched  with  dew, 
and  the  already  hot  sun  was  drawing  fra- 
grance from  them  and  filling  the  warm  air 
with  it.  The  marquis,  with  his  monocle 
fixed,  looked  up  into  the  cobalt-blue  sky  and 
among  the  trees,  where  a  wood-dove  or  two 
cooed  with  musical  softness. 

"Yes,"  he  observed,  with  a  glance  which 
swept  the  scene,  "  it  is  different  from  Mor- 
timer Street,  I  suppose.  Are  you  fond  of 
the  country  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  sighed  Emily  ;  "  oh,  yes  !  " 

She  was  not  a  specially  articulate  person. 
She  could  not  have  conveyed  in  words  all 
[  I04] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
that  her  u  Oh,  yes  !  "  really  meant  of  simple 
love  for  and  joy  in  rural  sights  and  sounds 
and  scents.  But  when  she  lifted  her  big 
kind  hazel  eyes  to  him,  the  earnestness 
of  her  emotion  made  them  pathetic,  as 
the  unspeakableness  of  her  pleasures  often 
did. 

Lord  Walderhurst  gazed  at  her  through 
the  monocle  with  an  air  he  sometimes  had 
of  taking  her  measure  without  either  unkind- 
liness  or  particular  interest. 

"  Is  Lady  Agatha  fond  of  the  country  ?  " 
he  inquired. 

"  She  is  fond  of  everything  that  is  beauti- 
ful," she  replied.  "  Her  nature  is  as  lovely 
as  her  face,  I  think." 

"Is  it?" 

Emily  walked  a  step  or  two  away  to  a 
rose  climbing  up  the  gray-red  wall,  and 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
began  to  clip  off  blossoms,  which  tumbled 
sweetly  into  her  basket. 

"  She  seems  lovely  in  everything,"  she 
said,  "  in  disposition  and  manner  and  — 
everything.  She  never  seems  to  disappoint 
one  or  make  mistakes." 

"  You  are  fond  of  her  ?  '* 

"  She  has  been  so  kind  to  me." 

* 

"  You  often  say  people  are    kind  to  you." 

Emily  paused  and  felt  a  trifle  confused. 
Realising  that  she  was  not  a  clever  person, 
and  being  a  modest  one,  she  began  to  wonder 
if  she  was  given  to  a  parrot-phrase  which  made 
her  tiresome.  She  blushed  up  to  her  ears. 

"People  are  kind,"  she  said  hesitatingly. 
"  I  — you  see,  I  have  nothing  to  give,  and  I 
always  seem  to  be  receiving." 

"  What  luck  !  "  remarked  his  lordship, 
calmly  gazing  at  her. 

[106] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
He  made  her  feel  rather  awkward,  and 
she  was  at  once  relieved  and  sorry  when  he 
walked  away  to  join  another  early  riser  who 
had  come  out  upon  the  lawn.  For  some 
mysterious  reason  Emily  Fox-Seton  liked 
him.  Perhaps  his  magnificence  and  the 
constant  talk  she  had  heard  of  him  had 
warmed  her  imagination.  He  had  never 
said  anything  particularly  intelligent  to  her, 
but  she  felt  as  if  he  had.  He  was  a  rather 
silent  man,  but  never  looked  stupid.  He  had 
made  some  good  speeches  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  not  brilliant,  but  sound  and  of  a  dig- 
nified respectability.  He  had  also  written 
two  pamphlets.  Emily  had  an  enormous 
respect  for  intellect,  and  frequently,  it  must 
be  admitted,  for  the  thing  which  passed  for 
it.  She  was  not  exacting. 

During  her  stay  at  Mallowe  in  the  sum- 
[107] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
mer,  Lady  Maria  always  gave  a  village  treat. 
She  had  given  it  for  forty  years,  and  it  was 
a  lively  function.  Several  hundred  wildly 
joyous  village  children  were  fed  to  repletion 
with  exhilarating  buns  and  cake  and  tea  in 
mugs,  after  which  they  ran  races  for  prizes, 
and  were  entertained  in  various  ways,  with 
the  aid  of  such  of  the  house-party  as  were 
benevolently  inclined  to  make  themselves 
useful. 

Everybody  was  not  so  inclined,  though 
people  always  thought  the  thing  amusing. 
Nobody  objected  to  looking  on,  and  some 
were  agreeably  stimulated  by  the  general 
sense  of  festivity.  But  Emily  Fox-Seton 
was  found  by  Lady  Maria  to  be  invaluable 
on  this  occasion.  It  was  so  easy,  without 
the  least  sense  of  ill-feeling,  to  give  her  all 
the  drudgery  to  do.  There  was  plenty  of 
[108] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

drudgery,  though  it  did  not  present  itself  to 
Emily  Fox-Stton  in  that  light.  She  no  more 
realised  that  she  was  giving  Lady  Maria  a 
good  deal  for  her  money,  so  to  speak,  than 
she  realised  that  her  ladyship,  though  an 
amusing  and  delightful,  was  an  absolutely  sel- 
fish and  inconsiderate  old  woman.  So  long 
as  Emily  Fox-Seton  did  not  seem  obviously 
tired,  it  would  not  have  occurred  to  Lady 
Maria  that  she  could  be  so;  that,  after  all, 
her  legs  and  arms  were  mere  human  flesh 
and  blood,  that  her  substantial  feet  were 
subject  to  the  fatigue  unending  trudging  to 
and  fro  induces.  Her  ladyship  was  simply 
delighted  that  the  preparations  went  so  well, 
that  she  could  turn  to  Emily  for  service  and 
always  find  her  ready.  Emily  made  lists  and 
calculations,  she  worked  out  plans  and  made 
purchases.  She  interviewed  the  village  ma- 
[109] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
trons  who  made  the  cake  and  buns,  and 
boiled  the  tea  in  bags  in  a  copper ;  she 
found  the  women  who  could  be  engaged  to 
assist  in  cutting  cake  and  bread-and-butter 
and  helping  to  serve  it;  she  ordered  the  put- 
ting up  of  tents  and  forms  and  tables;  the 
innumerable  things  to  be  remembered  she 
called  to  mind. 

"Really,  Emily,"  said  Lady  Maria,  "I 
don't  know  how  I  have  done  this  thing  for 
forty  years  without  you.  I  must  always 
have  you  at  Mallowe  for  the  treat." 

Emily  was  of  the  genial  nature  which 
rejoices  upon  even  small  occasions,  and  is 
invariably  stimulated  to  pleasure  by  the 
festivities  of  others.  The  festal  atmosphere 
was  a  delight  to  her.  In  her  numberless 
errands  to  the  village,  the  sight  of  the  excite- 
ment in  the  faces  of  the  children  she  passed 
[no] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

on  her  way  to  this  cottage  and  that  filled 
her  eyes  with  friendly  glee  and  wreathed  her 
face  with  smiles.  When  she  went  into  the 
cottage  where  the  cake  was  being  baked, 
children  hovered  about  in  groups  and  nudged 
each  other,  giggling.  They  hung  about, 
partly  through  thrilled  interest,  and  partly 
because  their  joy  made  them  eager  to  courtesy 
to  her  as  she  came  out,  the  obeisance  seem- 
ing to  identify  them  even  more  closely 
with  the  coming  treat.  They  grinned  and 
beamed  rosily,  and  Emily  smiled  at  them  and 
nodded,  uplifted  by  a  pleasure  almost  as  in- 
fantile as  their  own.  She  was  really  enjoy- 
ing herself  so  honestly  that  she  did  not 
realise  how  hard  she  worked  during  the  days 
before  the  festivity.  She  was  really  ingeni- 
ous, and  invented  a  number  of  new  methods 
of  entertainment.  It  was  she  who,  with  the 
[in] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
aid  of  a  couple  of  gardeners,  transformed 
the  tents  into  bowers  of  green  boughs  and 
arranged  the  decorations  of  the  tables  and 
the  park  gates. 

"  What  a  lot  of  walking  you  do  ! "  Lord 
Walderhurst  said  to  her  once,  as  she  passed 
the  group  on  the  lawn.  "  Do  you  know 
how  many  hours  you  have  been  on  your 
feet  to-day  ? " 

"I  like  it,"  she  answered,  and,  as  she 
hurried  by,  she  saw  that  he  was  sitting  a 
shade  nearer  to  Lady  Agatha  than  she  had 
ever  seen  him  sit  before,  and  that  Agatha, 
under  a  large  hat  of  white  gauze  frills,  was 
looking  like  a  seraph,  so  sweet  and  shining 
were  her  eyes,  so  flower-fair  her  face.  She 
looked  actually  happy. 

"  Perhaps  he  has  been  saying  things," 
Emily  thought.  "  How  happy  she  will  be  ! 
[112] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
He  has  such  a  nice  pair  of  eyes.  He  would 
make  a  woman  very  happy."  A  faint  sigh 
fluttered  from  her  lips.  She  was  beginning 
to  be  physically  tired,  and  was  not  yet  quite 
aware  of  it.  If  she  had  not  been  physically 
tired,  she  would  not  even  vaguely  have  had, 
at  this  moment,  recalled  to  her  mind  the 
fact  that  she  was  not  of  the  women  to  whom 
"  things  "  are  said  and  to  whom  things 
happen. 

"  Emily  Fox-Seton,"  remarked  Lady  Maria, 
fanning  herself,  as  it  was  frightfully  hot, 
"  has  the  most  admirable  effect  on  me.  She 
makes  me  feel  generous.  I  should  like  to 
present  her  with  the  smartest  things  from 
the  wardrobes  of  all  my  relations." 

11  Do  you  give  her  clothes  ?  "  asked  Wal- 
derhurst. 

"  I  have  n't  any  to  spare.     But  I  know 
8  [1,3] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
they   would   be   useful   to   her.     The  things , 
she   wears   are   touching ;    they   are  so  well 
contrived,  and  produce  such  a  decent  effect 
with  so  little." 

Lord  Walderhurst  inserted  his  monocle 
and  gazed  after  the  straight,  well-set-up 
back  of  the  disappearing  Miss  Fox-Seton. 

"  I  think,"  said  Lady  Agatha,  gently, 
"  that  she  is  really  handsome." 

"  So  she  is,"  admitted  Walderhurst  — 
"  quite  a  good-looking  woman." 

That  night  Lady  Agatha  repeated  the 
amiability  to  Emily,  whose  grateful  amaze- 
ment really  made  her  blush. 

"Lord  Walderhurst  knows  Sir  Bruce  Nor- 
man," said  Agatha.  "  Is  n't  it  strange  ? 
He  spoke  of  him  to  me  to-day.  He  says 
he  is  clever." 

"  You    had    a    nice    talk    this    afternoon, 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
had  n't  you  ?  "  said  Emily.  "  You  both 
looked  so  —  so  —  as  if  you  were  enjoying 
yourselves  when  I  passed." 

"  Did  he  look  as  if  he  were  enjoying  him- 
self? He  was  very  agreeable.  I  did  not 
know  he  could  be  so  agreeable." 

11 1  have  never  seen  him  look  as 
much  pleased,"  answered  Emily  Fox-Seton. 
"  Though  he  always  looks  as  if  he  liked 
talking  to  you,  Lady  Agatha.  That  large 
white  gauze  garden-hat  "  —  reflectively  — 
"  is  so  very  becoming." 

"  It  was  very  expensive,"  sighed  lovely 
Agatha.  "  And  they  last  such  a  short  time. 
Mamma  said  it  really  seemed  almost  criminal 
to  buy  it." 

"  How  delightful  it  will  be,"  remarked 
cheering  Emily,  "  when  —  when  you  need 
not  think  of  things  like  that !  " 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
"Oh!"  —  with  another  sigh,  this  time  a 
catch  of  the  breath,  — "  it  would  be  like 
Heaven  !  People  don't  know ;  they  think 
girls  are  frivolous  when  they  care,  and  that 
it  is  n't  serious.  But  when  one  knows  one 
must  have  things,  —  that  they  are  like  bread, 

—  it  is  awful  !  " 

"The  things  you  wear  really  matter." 
Emily  was  bringing  all  her  powers  to  bear 
upon  the  subject,  and  with  an  anxious  kind- 
ness which  was  quite  angelic.  "  Each  dress 
makes  you  look  like  another  sort  of  picture. 
Have  you  "  —  contemplatively  —  "  anything 
quite  different  to  wear  to-night  and  to- 
morrow ? " 

"  I  have  two  evening  dresses  I  have  not 
worn  here  yet  "  —  a  little  hesitatingly.  "  I 

—  well,  I  saved  them.     One  is  a  very  thin 
black  one  with  silver  on  it.     It  has  a  trem- 

[116] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
bling  silver  butterfly  for  the  shoulder,  and 
one  for  the  hair." 

"  Oh,  put  that  on  to-night  !  "  said  Emily, 
eagerly.  "  When  you  come  down  to  dinner 
you  will  look  so  —  so  new  !  I  always  think 
that  to  see  a  very  fair  person  suddenly  for 
the  first  time  all  in  black  gives  one  a  kind 
of  delighted  start — though  start  isn't  the 
word,  quite.  Do  put  it  on." 

Lady  Agatha  put  it  on.  Emily  Fox-Seton 
came  into  her  room  to  help  to  add  the  last 
touches  to  her  beauty  before  she  went  down 
to  dinner.  She  suggested  that  the  fair  hair 
should  be  dressed  even  higher  and  more 
lightly  than  usual,  so  that  the  silver  butterfly 
should  poise  the  more  airily  over  the  knot, 
with  its  quivering,  outstretched  wings.  She 
herself  poised  the  butterfly  high  upon  the 
shoulder. 

["7] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
"  Oh,  it  is  lovely  !  "  she  exclaimed,  draw- 
ing back  to  gaze  at  the  girl.     "  Do  let  me 
go   down   a   moment   or   so  before  you    do, 
so  that  I  can  see  you  come  into  the  room." 
She  was  sitting  in  a  chair  quite  near  Lord 
Walderhurst  when  her  charge  entered.     She 
saw  him  really  give  something  quite  like  a 
start  when  Agatha  appeared.      His  monocle, 
which  had  been  in  his  eye,  fell  out  of  it,  and 
he  picked  it  up  by  its  thin  cord  and  replaced  it. 
"  Psyche  ! "  she  heard  him  say  in  his  odd 
voice,  which  seemed  merely  to  make  a  state- 
ment without  committing  him  to  an  opinion 

—  "Psyche!" 

He  did    not  say   it  to  her  or  to  any  one 
else.     It  was  simply  a  kind  of  exclamation, 

—  appreciative  and  perceptive  without  being 
enthusiastic,  —  and  it  was  curious.     He  talked 
to  Agatha  nearly  all  the  evening. 

[118] 


THE   MAKING  of  a   MARCHIONESS 

Emily  came  to  Lady  Agatha  before  she 
retired,  looking  even  a  little  flushed. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  wear  at  the  treat 
to-morrow  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  A  white  muslin,  with  entre-deux  of  lace, 
and  the  gauze  garden-hat,  and  a  white  para- 
sol and  shoes." 

Lady  Agatha  looked  a  little  nervous ;  her 
pink  fluttered  in  her  cheek. 

"  And  to-morrow  night  ?  "  said  Emily. 

"  I  have  a  very  pale  blue.  Won't  you 
sit  down,  dear  Miss  Fox-Seton  ?  " 

"  We  must  both  go  to  bed  and  sleep.  You 
must  not  get  tired." 

But  she  sat  down  for  a  few  minutes,  be- 
cause she  saw  the  girl's  eyes  asking  her  to 
do  it. 

The  afternoon  post  had  brought  a  more 
than  usually  depressing  letter  from  Curzon 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
Street.  Lady  Claraway  was  at  her  motherly 
wits'  ends,  and  was  really  quite  touching  in 
her  distraction.  A  dressmaker  was  entering 
a  suit.  The  thing  would  get  into  the  papers, 
of  course. 

"  Unless  something  happens,  something  to 
save  us  by  staving  off  things,  we  shall  have 
to  go  to  Castle  Clare  at  once.  It  will  be  all 
over.  No  girl  could  be  presented  with  such 
a  thing  in  the  air.  They  don't  like  it." 

"They,"  of  course,  meant  persons  whose 
opinions  made  London's  society's  law. 

"To  go  to  Castle  Clare,"  faltered  Agatha, 
"  will  be  like  being  sentenced  to  starve  to 
death.  Alix  and  Hilda  and  Millicent  and 
Eve  and  I  will  be  starved,  quite  slowly,  for 
the  want  of  the  things  that  make  girls'  lives 
bearable  when  they  have  been  born  in  a 
certain  class.  And  even  if  the  most  splendid 

[120] 


Lady  Agatha  Slade 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
thing  happened  in  three  or  four  years,  it 
would  be  too  late  for  us  four  —  almost  too 
late  for  Eve.  If  you  are  out  of  London, 
of  course  you  are  forgotten.  People  can't 
help  forgetting.  Why  should  n't  they,  when 
there  are  such  crowds  of  new  girls  every 
year  ? " 

Emily  Fox-Seton  was  sweet.  She  was 
quite  sure  that  they  would  not  be  obliged  to 
go  to  Castle  Clare.  Without  being  indeli- 
cate, she  was  really  able  to  bring  hope  to 
the  fore.  She  said  a  good  deal  of  the  black 
gauze  dress  and  the  lovely  effect  of  the  silver 
butterflies. 

"  I  suppose  it  was  the  butterflies  which 
made  Lord  Walderhurst  say  c  Psyche  ! 
Psyche  ! '  when  he  first  saw  you,"  she  added, 
en  passant. 

"  Did  he  say  that  ?  "     And    immediately 

[121] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
Lady  Agatha  looked  as  if  she  had  not  in- 
tended to  say  the  words. 

"Yes,"  answered  Emily,  hurrying  on  with 
a  casual  air  which  had  a  good  deal  of  tact 
in  it.  "  And  black  makes  you  so  wonderfully 
fair  and  aerial.  You  scarcely  look  quite  real 
in  it ;  you  might  float  away.  But  you  must 
go  to  sleep  now." 

Lady  Agatha  went  with  her  to  the  door  of 
the  room  to  bid  her  good-night.  Her  eyes 
looked  like  those  of  a  child  who  might  pres- 
ently cry  a  little. 

"  Oh,  Miss  Fox-Seton,"  she  said,  in  a  very 
young  voice,  "  you  are  so  kind  !  " 


[122] 


HE  parts  of  the  park 
nearest  to  the  house 
already  presented  a 
busy  aspect  when 
Miss  Fox-Seton 
passed  through  the 
gardens  the  following 
morning.  Tables  were  being  put  up,  and 
baskets  of  bread  and  cake  and  groceries  were 
being  carried  into  the  tent  where  the  tea  was 
to  be  prepared.  The  workers  looked  inter- 
ested and  good-humoured ;  the  men  touched 
E>3] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
their  hats  as  Emily  appeared,  and  the  women 
courtesied  smilingly.  They  had  all  discov- 
ered that  she  was  amiable  and  to  be  relied 
on  in  her  capacity  of  her  ladyship's  repre- 
sentative. 

"She's  a  worker,  that  Miss  Fox-Seton," 
one  said  to  the  other.  "  I  never  seen  one 
that  was  a  lady  fall  to  as  she  does.  Ladies, 
even  when  they  means  well,  has  a  way  of 
standing  about  and  telling  you  to  do  things 
without  seeming  to  know  quite  how  they 
ought  to  be  done.  She's  coming  to  help 
with  the  bread-and-butter-cutting  herself  this 
morning,  and  she  put  up  all  them  packages 
of  sweets  yesterday  with  her  own  hands.  She 
did  'em  up  in  different-coloured  papers,  and 
tied  'em  with  bits  of  ribbon,  because  she  said 
she  knowed  children  was  prouder  of  coloured 
things  than  plain  —  they  was  like  that.  And 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
so  they  are :  a  bit  of  red  or  blue  goes  a  long 
way  with  a  child." 

Emily  cut  bread-and-butter  and  cake,  and 
placed  seats  and  arranged  toys  on  tables  all 
the  morning.  The  day  was  hot,  though 
beautiful,  and  she  was  so  busy  that  she  had 
scarcely  time  for  her  breakfast.  The  house- 
hold party  was  in  the  gayest  spirits.  Lady 
Maria  was  in  her  most  amusing  mood.  She 
had  planned  a  drive  to  some  interesting 
ruins  for  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day,  and 
a  dinner-party  for  the  evening.  Her  favourite 
neighbours  had  just  returned  to  their  country- 
seat  five  miles  away,  and  they  were  coming 
to  the  dinner,  to  her  great  satisfaction. 
Most  of  her  neighbours  bored  her,  and  she 
took  them  in  doses  at  her  dinners,  as  she 
would  have  taken  medicine.  But  the  Lock- 
yers  were  young  and  good-looking  and 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
clever,  and  she  was  always  glad  when  they 
came  to  Loche  during  her  stay  at  Mallowe. 

"There  is  not  a  frump  or  a  bore  among 
them,"  she  said.  "In  the  country  people 
are  usually  frumps  when  they  are  not  bores, 
and  bores  when  they  are  not  frumps,  and  I 
am  in  danger  of  becoming  both  myself.  Six 
weeks  of  unalloyed  dinner-parties,  composed 
of  certain  people  I  know,  would  make  me 
begin  to  wear  moreen  petticoats  and  talk 
about  the  deplorable  condition  of  London 
society." 

She  led  all  her  flock  out  on  to  the  lawn 
under  the  ilex-trees  after  breakfast. 

"  Let  us  go  and  encourage  industry,"  she 
said.  "  We  will  watch  Emily  Fox-Seton 
working.  She  is  an  example." 

Curiously  enough,  this  was  Miss  Cora 
Brooke's  day.  She  found  herself  actually 
[126] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
walking  across  the  lawn  with  Lord  Wal- 
derhurst  by  her  side.  She  did  not  know 
how  it  happened,  but  it  seemed  to  occur 
accidentally. 

"We  never  talk  to  each  other,"  he  said. 

"  Well,"  answered  Cora,  "  we  have  talked 
to  other  people  a  good  deal — at  least  I  have." 

"  Yes,  you  have  talked  a  good  deal,"  said 
the  marquis. 

"  Does  that  mean  I  have  talked  too  much  ?  " 

He  surveyed  her  prettiness  through  his 
glass.  Perhaps  the  holiday  stir  in  the  air 
gave  him  a  festive  moment. 

"  It  means  that  you  haven't  talked  enough 
to  me.  You  have  devoted  yourself  too  much 
to  the  laying  low  of  young  Heriot." 

She  laughed  a  trifle  saucily. 

"  You  are  a  very  independent  young  lady," 
remarked  Walderhurst,  with  a  lighter  man- 
["7] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
ner  than  usual.  "  You  ought  to  say  some- 
thing deprecatory  or  —  a  little  coy,  perhaps." 

"  I  sha'n't,"  said  Cora,  composedly. 

u  Sha'n't  or  won't  ?  "  he  inquired.  "  They 
are  both  bad  words  for  little  girls  —  or  young 
ladies  —  to  use  to  their  elders." 

"  Both,"  said  Miss  Cora  Brooke,  with  a 
slightly  pleased  flush.  "  Let  us  go  over  to 
the  tents  and  see  what  poor  Emily  Fox- 
Seton  is  doing." 

"  Poor  Emily  Fox-Seton,"  said  the  mar- 
quis, non-committally. 

They  went,  but  they  did  not  stay  long. 
The  treat  was  taking  form.  Emily  Fox- 
Seton  was  hot  and  deeply  engaged.  People 
were  coming  to  her  for  orders.  She  had  a 
thousand  things  to  do  and  to  superintend 
the  doing  of.  The  prizes  for  the  races  and 
the  presents  for  the  children  must  be  ar- 
[128] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
ranged  in  order  :  things  for  boys  and  things 
for  girls,  presents  for  little  children  and 
presents  for  big  ones.  Nobody  must  be 
missed,  and  no  one  must  be  given  the  wrong 
thing. 

"  It  would  be  dreadful,  you  know,"  Emily 
said  to  the  two  when  they  came  into  her 
tent  and  began  to  ask  questions,  u  if  a  big 
boy  should  get  a  small  wooden  horse,  or  a 
little  baby  should  be  given  a  cricket  bat  and 
ball.  Then  it  would  be  so  disappointing 
if  a  tiny  girl  got  a  work-box  and  a  big  one 
got  a  doll.  One  has  to  get  things  in  order. 
They  look  forward  to  this  so,  and  it 's  heart- 
breaking to  a  child  to  be  disappointed,  is  n't 
it?" 

Walderhurst  gazed  uninspiringly. 

u  Who  did  this  for  Lady  Maria  when  you 
were  not  here  ?  "  he  inquired. 
9  [129] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

"  Oh,  other  people.  But  she  says  it  was 
tiresome."  Then  with  an  illumined  smile  : 
"  She  has  asked  me  to  Mallowe  for  the 
next  twenty  years  for  the  treats.  She  is  so 
kind." 

"  Maria  is  a  kind  woman  "  —  with  what 
seemed  to  Emily  delightful  amiability.  "She 
is  kind  to  her  treats  and  she  is  kind  to 
Maria  Bayne." 

"  She  is  kind  to  me"  said  Emily.  "  You 
don't  know  how  I  am  enjoying  this." 

"  That  woman  enjoys  everything,"  Lord 
Walderhurst  said  when  he  walked  away  with 
Cora.  "  What  a  temperament  to  have  !  I 
would  give  ten  thousand  a  year  for  it." 

"She    has   so    little,"    said    Cora,   "  that 

everything     seems    beautiful    to    her.      One 

does  n't   wonder,   either.      She  's    very    nice. 

Mother    and    I   quite  admire  her.     We  are 

C'30] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
thinking  of  inviting  her  to  New  York  and 
giving  her  a  real  good  time." 

"  She  would  enjoy  New  York." 

"  Have  you  ever  been  there,  Lord  Wal- 
derhurst  ? " 

"  No." 

"  You  ought  to  come,  really.  So  many 
Englishmen  come  now,  and  they  all  seem  to 
like  it." 

"  Perhaps  I  will  come,"  said  Walderhurst. 
"  I  have  been  thinking  of  it.  One  is  tired 
of  the  Continent  and  one  knows  India. 
One  does  n't  know  Fifth  Avenue,  and  Cen- 
tral Park,  and  the  Rocky  Mountains." 

"  One  might  try  them,"  suggested  pretty 
Miss  Cora. 

This  certainly  was  her  day.  Lord  Wal- 
derhurst took  her  and  her  mother  out  in  his 
own  particular  high  phaeton  before  lunch. 
[131] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
He  was  fond  of  driving,  and  his  own  phaeton 
and  horses  had  come  to  Mallowe  with  him. 
He  took  only  his  favourites  out,  and  though 
he  bore  himself  on  this  occasion  with  a  calm 
air,  the  event  caused  a  little  smiling  flurry 
on  the  lawn.  At  least,  when  the  phaeton 
spun  down  the  avenue  with  Miss  Brooke  and 
her  mother  looking  slightly  flushed  and  thrilled 
in  their  high  seats  of  honour,  several  people 
exchanged  glances  and  raised  eye-brows. 

Lady  Agatha  went  to  her  room  and  wrote 
a  long  letter  to  Curzon  Street.  Mrs.  Ralph 
talked  about  the  problem-play  to  young  He- 
riot  and  a  group  of  others. 

The  afternoon,  brilliant  and  blazing, 
brought  new  visitors  to  assist  by  their  pres- 
ence at  the  treat.  Lady  Maria  always  had 
a  large  house-party,  and  added  guests  from 
the  neighbourhood  to  make  for  gaiety. 

C«s»] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
At  two  o'clock  a  procession  of  village 
children  and  their  friends  and  parents,  headed 
by  the  village  band,  marched  up  the  avenue 
and  passed  before  the  house  on  their  way 
to  their  special  part  of  the  park.  Lady 
Maria  and  her  guests  stood  upon  the  broad 
steps  and  welcomed  the  jocund  crowd,  as 
it  moved  by,  with  hospitable  bows  and  nods 
and  becks  and  wreathed  smiles.  Everybody 
was  in  a  delighted  good-humour. 

As  the  villagers  gathered  in  the  park,  the 
house-party  joined  them  by  way  of  the  gar- 
dens. A  conjurer  from  London  gave  an 
entertainment  under  a  huge  tree,  and  chil- 
dren found  white  rabbits  taken  from  their 
pockets  and  oranges  from  their  caps,  with 
squeals  of  joy  and  shouts  of  laughter.  Lady 
Maria's  guests  walked  about  and  looked  on, 
laughing  with  the  children. 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

The  great  affair  of  tea  followed  the  per- 
formance. No  treat  is  fairly  under  way 
until  the  children  are  filled  to  the  brim  with 
tea  and  buns  and  cake,  principally  cake  in 
plummy  wedges. 

Lady  Agatha  and  Mrs.  Ralph  handed  cake 
along  rows  of  children  seated  on  the  grass. 
Miss  Brooke  was  talking  to  Lord  Walder- 
hurst  when  the  work  began.  She  had  pop- 
pies in  her  hat  and  carried  a  poppy-coloured 
parasol,  and  sat  under  a  tree,  looking  very 
alluring. 

"  I  ought  to  go  and  help  to  hand  cake," 
she  said. 

"  My  cousin  Maria  ought  to  do  it,"  re- 
marked Lord  Walderhurst,  "  but  she  will 
not  —  neither  shall  I.  Tell  me  something 
about  the  elevated  railroad  and  Five-Hun- 
dred-and-Fifty-Thousandth  Street." 
['34] 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

He  had  a  slightly  rude,  gracefully  languid 
air,  which  Cora  Brooke  found  somewhat 
impressive,  after  all. 

Emily  Fox-Seton  handed  cake  and  regu- 
lated supplies  with  cheerful  tact  and  good 
spirits.  When  the  older  people  were  given 
their  tea,  she  moved  about  their  tables,  attend- 
ing to  every  one.  She  was  too  heart-whole 
in  her  interest  in  her  hospitalities  to  find  time 
to  join  Lady  Maria  and  her  party  at  the  table 
under  the  ilex-trees.  She  ate  some  bread- 
and-butter  and  drank  a  cup  of  tea  while  she 
talked  to  some  old  women  she  had  made 
friends  with.  She  was  really  enjoying  her- 
self immensely,  though  occasionally  she  was 
obliged  to  sit  down  for  a  few  moments  just 
to  rest  her  tired  feet.  The  children  came 
to  her  as  to  an  omnipotent  and  benign  being. 
She  knew  where  the  toys  were  kept  and 
['35] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
what  prizes  were  to  be  given  for  the  races. 
She  represented  law  and  order  and  bestowal. 
The  other  ladies  walked  about  in  wonderful 
dresses,  smiling  and  exalted,  the  gentlemen 
aided  the  sports  in  an  amateurish  way  and 
made  patrician  jokes  among  themselves,  but 
this  one  lady  seemed  to  be  part  of  the  treat 
itself.  She  was  not  so  grandly  dressed  as 
the  others,  —  her  dress  was  only  blue  linen 
with  white  bands  on  it,  —  and  she  had  only 
a  sailor  hat  with  a  buckle  and  bow,  but  she 
was  of  her  ladyship's  world  of  London 
people,  nevertheless,  and  they  liked  her  more 
than  they  had  ever  liked  a  lady  before.  It 
was  a  fine  treat,  and  she  seemed  to  have 
made  it  so.  There  had  never  been  quite  such 
a  varied  and  jovial  treat  at  Mallowe  before. 

The  afternoon  waxed   and   waned.     The 
children  played  games  and  raced  and  rejoiced 
[136] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
until  their  young  limbs  began  to  fail  them. 
The  older  people  sauntered  about  or  sat  in 
groups  to  talk  and  listen  to  the  village  band. 
Lady  Maria's  visitors,  having  had  enough  of 
rural  festivities,  went  back  to  the  gardens  in 
excellent  spirits,  to  talk  and  to  watch  a  game 
of  tennis  which  had  taken  form  on  the  court. 
Emily  Fox-Seton's  pleasure  had  not  abated, 
but  her  colour  had  done  so.  Her  limbs  ached 
and  her  still-smiling  face  was  pale,  as  she 
stood  under  the  beech-tree  regarding  the  final 
ceremonies  of  the  festal  day,  to  preside  over 
which  Lady  Maria  and  her  party  returned 
from  their  seats  under  the  ilex-trees.  The 
National  Anthem  was  sung  loudly,  and  there 
were  three  tremendous  cheers  given  for  her 
ladyship.  They  were  such  joyous  and 
hearty  cheers  that  Emily  was  stirred  almost 
to  emotional  tears.  At  all  events,  her  hazel 
[  '37] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
eyes  looked  nice  and  moistly  bright.  She 
was  an  easily  moved  creature. 

Lord  Walderhurst  stood  near  Lady  Maria 
and  looked  pleased  also.  Emily  saw  him 
speak  to  her  ladyship  and  saw  Lady  Maria 
smile.  Then  he  stepped  forward,  with  his 
non-committal  air  and  his  monocle  glaring 
calmly  in  his  eye. 

"Boys  and  girls,"  he  said  in  a  clear,  far- 
reaching  voice,  "  I  want  you  to  give  three  of 
the  biggest  cheers  you  are  capable  of  for 
the  lady  who  has  worked  to  make  your  treat 
the  success  it  has  been.  Her  ladyship  tells 
me  she  has  never  had  such  a  treat  before. 
Three  cheers  for  Miss  Fox-Seton." 

Emily  gave  a  gasp  and  felt  a  lump  rise  in 
her  throat.  She  felt  as  if  she  had  been  with- 
out warning  suddenly  changed  into  a  royal 
personage,  and  she  scarcely  knew  what  to  do. 
['38] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
The  whole  treat,  juvenile  and  adult,  male 
and  female,  burst  into  three  cheers  which 
were  roars  and  bellows.  Hats  and  caps 
were  waved  and  tossed  into  the  air,  and 
every  creature  turned  toward  her  as  she 
blushed  and  bowed  in  tremulous  gratitude 
and  delight. 

«  Oh,  Lady  Maria  !  oh,  Lord  Walder- 
hurst !  "  she  said,  when  she  managed  to  get 
to  them,  "  how  kind  you  are  to  me  !  " 


[139] 


FTER  she  had  taken  her 
early  tea  in  the  morn- 
ing, Emily  Fox-Seton 
lay  upon  her  pillows 
and  gazed  out  upon  the 
tree-branches  near  her 
window,  in  a  state  of  bliss.  She  was  tired, 
but  happy.  How  well  everything  had  "gone 
off"  !  How  pleased  Lady  Maria  had  been, 
and  how  kind  of  Lord  Walderhurst  to  ask 
the  villagers  to  give  three  cheers  for  her- 
self! She  had  never  dreamed,  of  such  a 
thing.  It  was  the  kind  of  attention  not  usu- 

[HO] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
ally  offered  to  her.  She  smiled  her  childlike 
smile  and  blushed  at  the  memory  of  it.  Her 
impression  of  the  world  was  that  people  were 
really  very  amiable,  as  a  rule.  They  were 
always  good  to  her,  at  least,  she  thought, 
and  it  did  not  occur  to  her  that  if  she  had 
not  paid  her  way  so  remarkably  well  by 
being  useful  they  might  have  been  less 
agreeable.  Never  once  had  she  doubted  that 
Lady  Maria  was  the  most  admirable  and 
generous  of  human  beings.  She  was  not 
aware  in  the  least  that  her  ladyship  got  a 
good  deal  out  of  her.  In  justice  to  her 
ladyship,  it  may  be  said  that  she  was  not 
wholly  aware  of  it  herself,  and  that  Emily 
absolutely  enjoyed  being  made  use  of. 

This  morning,  however,  when  she  got  up, 
she  found  herself  more  tired  than  she  ever 
remembered    being    before,   and    it   may   be 
[  '4'] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
easily  argued  that  a  woman  who  runs  about 
London  on  other  people's  errands  often 
knows  what  it  is  to  be  aware  of  aching 
limbs.  She  laughed  a  little  when  she  dis- 
covered that  her  feet  were  actually  rather 
swollen,  and  that  she  must  wear  a  pair  of 
her  easiest  slippers. 

"  I  must  sit  down  as  much  as  I  can 
to-day,"  she  thought.  "  And  yet,  with  the 
dinner-party  and  the  excursion  this  morning, 
there  may  be  a  number  of  little  things  Lady 
Maria  would  like  me  to  do." 

There  were,  indeed,  numbers  of  things 
Lady  Maria  was  extremely  glad  to  ask 
her  to  do.  The  drive  to  the  ruins  was 
to  be  made  before  lunch,  because  some 
of  the  guests  felt  that  an  afternoon  jaunt 
would  leave  them  rather  fagged  for  the 
dinner-party  in  the  evening.  Lady  Maria 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

was  not  going,  and,  as  presently  became 
apparent,  the  carriages  would  be  rather 
crowded  if  Miss  Fox-Seton  joined  the  party. 
On  the  whole,  Emily  was  not  sorry  to  have 
an  excuse  for  remaining  at  home,  and  so  the 
carriages  drove  away  comfortably  filled,  and 
Lady  Maria  and  Miss  Fox-Seton  watched 
their  departure. 

"  I  have  no  intention  of  having  my  vener- 
able bones  rattled  over  hill  and  dale  the  day 
I  give  a  dinner-party,"  said  her  ladyship. 
"  Please  ring  the  bell,  Emily.  I  want  to 
make  sure  of  the  fish.  Fish  is  one  of  the 
problems  of  country  life.  Fishmongers  are 
demons,  and  when  they  live  five  miles  from 
one  they  can  arouse  the  most  powerful 
human  emotions." 

Mallowe  Court  was  at  a  distance  from  the 
country  town  delightful  in  its  effects  upon 
[  H3] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
the  rusticity  of  the  neighbourhood,  but  appal- 
ling when  considered  in  connection  with 
fish.  One  could  not  dine  without  fish  ;  the 
town  was  small  and  barren  of  resources,  and 
the  one  fishmonger  of  weak  mind  and  unre- 
liable nature. 

The  footman  who  obeyed  the  summons 
of  the  bell  informed  her  ladyship  that  the 
cook  was  rather  anxious  about  the  fish,  as 
usual.  The  fishmonger  had  been  a  little 
doubtful  as  to  whether  he  could  supply  her 
needs,  and  his  cart  never  arrived  until  half- 
past  twelve. 

"  Great  goodness !  "  exclaimed  her  lady- 
ship when  the  man  retired.  "  What  a  sit- 
uation if  we  found  ourselves  without  fish ! 
Old  General  Barnes  is  the  most  ferocious  old 
gourmand  in  England,  and  he  loathes  people 
who  give  him  bad  dinners.  We  are  all 
E'44] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
rather  afraid  of  him,  the  fact  is,  and  I  will 
own  that  I  am  vain  about  my  dinners.  That 
is  the  last  charm  nature  leaves  a  woman,  the 
power  to  give  decent  dinners.  I  shall  be 
fearfully  annoyed  if  any  ridiculous  thing 
happens." 

They  sat  in  the  morning-room  together 
writing  notes  and  talking,  and,  as  half- past 
twelve  drew  near,  watching  for  the  fish- 
monger's cart.  Once  or  twice  Lady  Maria 
spoke  of  Lord  Walderhurst. 

"  He  is  an  interesting  creature,  to  my 
mind,"  she  said.  "  I  have  always  rather 
liked  him.  He  has  original  ideas,  though  he 
is  not  in  the  least  brilliant.  I  believe  he 
talks  more  freely  to  me,  on  the  whole,  than 
to  most  people,  though  I  can't  say  he  has  a 
particularly  good  opinion  of  me.  He  stuck 
his  glass  in  his  eye  and  stared  at  me  last 

.  10  [  '45  ] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
night,  in  that  weird  way  of  his,  and  said  to 
me,  c  Maria,  in  an  ingenuous  fashion  of  your 
own,  you  are  the  most  abominably  selfish 
woman  I  ever  beheld.'  Still,  I  know  he  rather 
likes  me.  I  said  to  him:  'That  isn't  quite 
true,  James.  I  am  selfish,  but  I  'm  not 
abominably  selfish.  Abominably  selfish  people 
always  have  nasty  tempers,  and  no  one  can 
accuse  me  of  having  a  nasty  temper.  I  have 
the  disposition  of  a  bowl  of  bread  and  milk.'  " 

"  Emily,"  —  as  wheels  rattled  up  the 
avenue,  —  "  is  that  the  fishmonger's  cart  ?  " 

"No,"  answered  Emily  at  the  window; 
"  it  is  the  butcher." 

u  His  attitude  toward  the  women  here  has 
made  my  joy,"  Lady  Maria  proceeded,  smil- 
ing over  the  deep-sea  fishermen's  knitted 
helmet  she  had  taken  up.  "  He  behaves 
beautifully  to  them  all,  but  not  one  of  them 
[  146] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
has  really  a  leg  to  stand  on  as  far  as  he  is 
responsible  for  it.  But  I  will  tell  you  some- 
thing, Emily."  And  she  paused. 

Miss  Fox-Seton  waited  with  interested  eyes. 

"  He  is  thinking  of  bringing  the  thing  to 
an  end  and  marrying  some  woman.  I  feel  it 
in  my  bones." 

"Do  you  think  so?"  exclaimed  Emily. 
"  Oh,  I  cari4  help  hoping  — "  But  she 
paused  also. 

"You  hope  it  will  be  Agatha  Slade," 
Lady  Maria  ended  for  her.  "  Well,  per- 
haps it  will  be.  I  sometimes  think  it  is 
Agatha,  if  it 's  any  one.  And  yet  I  'm  not 
sure.  One  never  could  be  sure  with  Wal- 
derhurst.  He  has  always  had  a  trick  of 
keeping  more  than  his  mouth  shut.  I  won- 
der if  he  could  have  any  other  woman  up 
his  sleeve  ?  " 

[H7] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
"  Why  do  you  think  —  "  began  Emily. 
Lady  Maria  laughed. 

"For  an  odd  reason.  The  Walderhursts 
have  a  ridiculously  splendid  ring  in  the 
family,  which  they  have  a  way  of  giving  to 
the  women  they  become  engaged  to.  It's 
ridiculous  because — well,  because  a  ruby  as 
big  as  a  trousers'  button  is  ridiculous.  You 
can't  get  over  that.  There  is  a  story  con- 
nected with  this  one  —  centuries  and  things, 
and  something  about  the  woman  the  first 
Walderhurst  had  it  made  for.  She  was  a 
Dame  Something  or  Other  who  had  snubbed 
the  King  for  being  forward,  and  the  snub- 
bing was  so  good  for  him  that  he  thought 
she  was  a  saint  and  gave  the  ruby  for  her 
betrothal.  Well,  by  the  merest  accident  I 
found  Walderhurst  had  sent  his  man  to  town 
for  it.  It  came  two  days  ago." 
[148] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

"  Oh,  how  interesting !  "  said  Emily, 
thrilled.  "It  must  mean  something." 

"  It  is  rather  a  joke.  Wheels  again,  Emily. 
Is  that  the  fishmonger  ?  " 

Emily  went  to  the  window  once  more. 
"  Yes,"  she  answered,  "  if  his  name  is 
Buggle." 

"  His  name  is  Buggle,"  said  Lady  Maria, 
"  and  we  are  saved." 

But  five  minutes  later  the  cook  herself 
appeared  at  the  morning-room  door.  She 
was  a  stout  person,  who  panted,  and  respect- 
fully removed  beads  of  perspiration  from  her 
brow  with  a  clean  handkerchief.  She  was 
as  nearly  pale  as  a  heated  person  of  her 
weight  may  be. 

"  And  what  has  happened  now,  cook  ?  " 
asked  Lady  Maria. 

"  That  Buggle,  your  ladyship,"  said  cook, 
[•49] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
"  says  your  ladyship  can't  be  no  sorrier 
than  he  is,  but  when  fish  goes  bad  in  a 
night  it  can't  be  made  fresh  in  the  morn- 
ing. He  brought  it  that  I  might  see  it  for 
myself,  and  it  is  in  a  state  as  could  not  be 
used  by  any  one.  I  was  that  upset,  your 
ladyship,  that  I  felt  like  I  must  come  and 
explain  myself." 

"  What  can  be  done  ?  "  exclaimed  Lady 
Maria.  "  Emily,  do  suggest  something." 

"  We  can't  even  be  sure,"  said  the  cook, 
"  that  Batch  has  what  would  suit  us.  Batch 
sometimes  has  it,  but  he  is  the  fishmonger  at 
Maundell,  and  that  is  four  miles  away,  and 
we  are  short-'anded,  your  ladyship,  now  the 
'ouse  is  so  full,  and  not  a  servant  that  could 
be  spared." 

"Dear  me!"  said  Lady  Maria.  "Emily, 
this  is  really  enough  to  drive  one  quite  mad. 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
If  everything  was  not  out  of  the  stables,  I 
know  you  would  drive  over  to  Maundell. 
You  are  such  a  good  walker," — catching  a 
gleam  of  hope,  — u  do  you  think  you  could 
walk  ?  " 

Emily  tried  to  look  cheerful.  Lady 
Maria's  situation  was  really  an  awful  one 
for  a  hostess.  It  would  not  have  mattered 
in  the  least  if  her  strong,  healthy  body  had 
not  been  so  tired.  She  was  an  excellent 
walker,  and  ordinarily  eight  miles  would 
have  meant  nothing  in  the  way  of  fatigue. 
She  was  kept  in  good  training  by  her  walking 
in  town.  Springy  moorland  swept  by  fresh 
breezes  was  not  like  London  streets. 

"  I  think  I  can  manage  it,"  she  said  nice- 
temperedly.  "  If  I  had  not  run  about  so 
much  yesterday  it  would  be  a  mere  nothing. 
You  must  have  the  fish,  of  course.  I  will 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
walk  over  the  moor  to  Maundell  and  tell 
Batch  it  must  be  sent  at  once.  Then  I 
will  come  back  slowly.  I  can  rest  on  the 
heather  by  the  way.  The  moor  is  lovely  in 
the  afternoon." 

"  You  dear  soul !  "  Lady  Maria  broke  forth. 
"  What  a  boon  you  are  to  a  woman !  " 

She  felt  quite  grateful.  There  arose  in 
her  mind  an  impulse  to  invite  Emily  Fox- 
Seton  to  remain  the  rest  of  her  life  with  her, 
but  she  was  too  experienced  an  elderly  lady 
to  give  way  to  impulses.  She  privately  re- 
solved, however,  that  she  would  have  her  a 
good  deal  in  South  Audley  Street,  and  would 
make  her  some  decent  presents. 

When  Emily  Fox-Seton,  attired  for  her 
walk  in  her  shortest  brown  linen  frock  and 
shadiest  hat,  passed  through  the  hall,  the 
post-boy  was  just  delivering  the  midday 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
letters  to  a  footman.  The  servant  presented 
his  salver  to  her  with  a  letter  for  herself 
lying  upon  the  top  of  one  addressed  in  Lady 
Claraway's  handwriting  "  To  the  Lady 
Agatha  Slade."  Emily  recognised  it  as  one 
of  the  epistles  of  many  sheets  which  so  often 
made  poor  Agatha  shed  slow  and  depressed 
tears.  Her  own  letter  was  directed  in  the 
well-known  hand  of  Mrs.  Cupp,  and  she 
wondered  what  it  could  contain. 

"  I  hope  the  poor  things  are  not  in  any 
trouble,"  she  thought.  "  They  were  afraid 
the  young  man  in  the  sitting-room  was  en- 
gaged. If  he  got  married  and  left  them,  I 
don't  know  what  they  would  do ;  he  has 
been  so  regular." 

Though  the  day  was  hot,  the  weather  was 
perfect,  and  Emily,  having  exchanged  her 
easy  slippers  for  an  almost  equally  easy  pair 
[•53] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
of  tan  shoes,  found  her  tired  feet  might  still 
be  used.  Her  disposition  to  make  the  very 
best  of  things  inspired  her  to  regard  even  an 
eight-mile  walk  with  courage.  The  moor- 
land air  was  so  sweet,  the  sound  of  the  bees 
droning  as  they  stumbled  about  in  the  heather 
was  such  a  comfortable,  peaceful  thing, 
that  she  convinced  herself  that  she  should 
find  the  four  miles  to  Maundell  quite 
agreeable. 

She  had  so  many  nice  things  to  think  of 
that  she  temporarily  forgot  that  she  had  put 
Mrs.  Cupp's  letter  in  her  pocket,  and  was 
half-way  across  the  moor  before  she  re- 
membered it. 

"  Dear  me  !  "  she  exclaimed  when  she  re- 
called it.  "  I  must  see  what  has  happened." 

She  opened  the  envelope  and  began  to  read 
as  she  walked  ;  but  she  had  not  taken  many 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
steps  before  she  uttered  an  exclamation  and 
stopped. 

"  How  very  nice  for  them ! "  she  said, 
but  she  turned  rather  pale. 

From  a  worldly  point  of  view  the  news 
the  letter  contained  was  indeed  very  nice  for 
the  Cupps,  but  it  put  a  painful  aspect  upon 
the  simple  affairs  of  poor  Miss  Fox-Seton. 

"  It  is  a  great  piece  of  news,  in  one  way," 
wrote  Mrs.  Cupp,  "  and  yet  me  and  Jane 
can't  help  feeling  a  bit  low  at  the  thought 
of  the  changes  it  will  make,  and  us  living 
where  you  won't  be  with  us,  if  I  may  take 
the  liberty,  miss.  My  brother  William  made 
a  good  bit  of  money  in  Australia,  but  he 
has  always  been  homesick  for  the  old  country, 
as  he  always  calls  England.  His  wife  was  a 
Colonial,  and  when  she  died  a  year  ago  he 
made  up  his  mind  to  come  home  to  settle 
['55] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
in  Chichester,  where  he  was  born.  He  says 
there  's  nothing  like  the  feeling  of  a  Cathe- 
dral town.  He  's  bought  such  a  nice  house 
a  bit  out,  with  a  big  garden,  and  he  wants 
me  and  Jane  to  come  and  make  a  home  with 
him.  He  says  he  has  worked  hard  all  his 
life,  and  now  he  means  to  be  comfortable, 
and  he  can't  be  bothered  with  housekeeping. 
He  promises  to  provide  well  for  us  both, 
and  he  wants  us  to  sell  up  Mortimer  Street, 
and  come  as  quick  as  possible.  But  we 
shall  miss  you,  miss,  and  though  her  Uncle 
William  keeps  a  trap  and  everything  accord- 
ing, and  Jane  is  grateful  for  his  kindness, 
she  broke  down  and  cried  hard  last  night, 
and  says  to  me :  c  Oh,  mother,  if  Miss  Fox- 
Seton  could  just  manage  to  take  me  as  a 
maid,  I  would  rather  be  it  than  anything. 
Traps  don't  feed  the  heart,  mother,  and  I  Ve 
E'56] 


THE  -MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

a  feeling  for  Miss  Fox-Seton  as  is  perhaps 
unbecoming  to  my  station.'  But  we  Ve 
got  the  men  in  the  house  ticketing  things, 
miss,  and  we  want  to  know  what  we  shall 
do  with  the  articles  in  your  bed-sitting- 
room." 

The  friendliness  of  the  two  faithful  Cupps 
and  the  humble  Turkey-red  comforts  of  the 
bed-sitting-room  had  meant  home  to  Emily 
Fox-Seton.  When  she  had  turned  her  face 
and  her  tired  feet  away  from  discouraging 
errands  and  small  humiliations  and  discom- 
forts, she  had  turned  them  toward  the  bed- 
sitting-room,  the  hot  little  fire,  the  small,  fat 
black  kettle  singing  on  the  hob,  and  the  two- 
and-eleven-penny  tea-set.  Not  being  given 
to  crossing  bridges  before  she  reached  them, 
she  had  never  contemplated  the  dreary  possi- 
bility that  her  refuge  might  be  taken  away 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
from  her.  She  had  not  dwelt  upon  the  fact 
that  she  had  no  other  real  refuge  on  earth. 

As  she  walked  among  the  sun-heated 
heather  and  the  luxuriously  droning  bees, 
she  dwelt  upon  it  now  with  a  suddenly  realis- 
ing sense.  As  it  came  home  to  her  soul, 
her  eyes  filled  with  big  tears,  which  brimmed 
over  and  rolled  down  her  cheeks.  They 
dropped  upon  the  breast  of  her  linen  blouse 
and  left  marks. 

"  I  shall  have  to  find  a  new  bed-sitting- 
room  somewhere,"  she  said,  the  breast  of 
the  linen  blouse  lifting  itself  sharply.  "  It 
will  be  so  different  to  be  in  a  house  with 
strangers.  Mrs.  Cupp  and  Jane  —  "  She 
was  obliged  to  take  out  her  handkerchief  at 
that  moment.  "  I  am  afraid  I  can't  get 
anything  respectable  for  ten  shillings  a  week. 
It  was  very  cheap  —  and  they  were  so  nice !  " 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
All  her  fatigue  of  the  early  morning  had 
returned.  Her  feet  began  to  burn  and  ache, 
and  the  sun  felt  almost  unbearably  hot. 
The  mist  in  her  eyes  prevented  her  seeing 
the  path  before  her.  Once  or  twice  she 
stumbled  over  something. 

"  It  seems  as  if  it  must  be  farther  than 
four  miles,"  she  said.  "  And  then  there  is 
the  walk  back.  I  am  tired.  But  I  must 
get  on,  really." 


'HE  drive  to  the  ruins  had 
been  a  great  success.  It 
was  a  drive  of  just  suffi- 
cient length  to  put  people 
in  spirits  without  fatigu- 
ing them.  The  party 
came  back  to  lunch  with  delightful  appetites. 
Lady  Agatha  and  Miss  Cora  Brooke  had 
pink  cheeks.  The  Marquis  of  Walderhurst 
had  behaved  charmingly  to  both  of  them. 
He  had  helped  each  of  them  to  climb  about 
among  the  ruins,  and  had  taken  them  both 
up  the  steep,  dark  stairway  of  one  of  the 
[160] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
towers,  and  stood  with  them  looking  over 
the  turrets  into  the  courtyard  and  the  moat. 
He  knew  the  history  of  the  castle,  and  could 
point  out  the  banquet-hall  and  the  chapel 
and  the  serving-places,  and  knew  legends 
about  the  dungeons. 

"  He  gives  us  all  a  turn,  mother,"  said 
Miss  Cora  Brooke.  "  He  even  gave  a  turn 
yesterday  to  poor  Emily  Fox-Seton.  He 's 
rather  nice." 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  laughter  at 
lunch  after  their  return.  Miss  Cora  Brooke 
was  quite  brilliant  in  her  gay  little  sallies. 
But  though  she  was  more  talkative  than 
Lady  Agatha,  she  did  not  look  more  bril- 
liant. The  letter  from  Curzon  Street  had 
not  made  the  beauty  shed  tears.  Her  face 
had  fallen  when  it  had  been  handed  to  her 
on  her  return,  and  she  had  taken  it  upstairs 
ii  [  161  ] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
to  her  room  with  rather  a  flagging  step.  But 
when  she  came  down  to  lunch  she  walked 
with  the  movement  of  a  nymph.  Her  lovely 
little  face  wore  a  sort  of  tremulous  radiance. 
She  laughed  like  a  child  at  every  amusing 
thing  that  was  said.  She  might  have  been 
ten  years  old  instead  of  twenty-two,  her 
colour,  her  eyes,  her  spirits  seemed  of  a 
freshness  so  infantine. 

She  was  leaning  back  in  her  chair  laugh- 
ing enchantingly  at  one  of  Miss  Brooke's 
sparkling  remarks  when  Lord  Walderhurst, 
who  sat  next  to  her,  said  suddenly,  glancing 
round  the  table  : 

"  But  where  is  Miss  Fox-Seton  ?" 

It  was  perhaps  a  significant  fact  that  up 
to  this  moment  nobody  had  observed  her 
absence. 

It  was  Lady  Maria  who  replied. 
[162] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

"  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  answer,"  she 
said.  "  As  I  have  said  before,  Emily  Fox- 
Seton  has  become  the  lodestar  of  my  ex- 
istence. I  cannot  live  without  her.  She  has 
walked  over  to  Maundell  to  make  sure  that 
we  do  not  have  a  dinner-party  without  fish 
to-night." 

"  She  has  walked  over  to  Maundell,"  said 
Lord  Walderhurst  —  "  after  yesterday  ?  " 

"  There  was  not  a  pair  of  wheels  left  in 
the  stable,"  answered  Lady  Maria.  "  It  is 
disgraceful,  of  course,  but  she  is  a  splendid 
walker,  and  she  said  she  was  not  too  tired 
to  do  it.  It  is  the  kind  of  thing  she  ought 
to  be  given  the  Victoria  Cross  for  —  saving 
one  from  a  dinner-party  without  fish." 

The  Marquis  of  Walderhurst  took  up  the 
cord    of  his    monocle    and    fixed    the 
rigidly  in  his  eye. 

[163] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

"  It  is  not  only  four  miles  to  Maundell," 
he  remarked,  staring  at  the  table-cloth,  not 
at  Lady  Maria,  u  but  it  is  four  miles  back." 

"  By  a  singular  coincidence,"  said  Lady 
Maria. 

The  talk  and  laughter  went  on,  and  the 
lunch  also,  but  Lord  Walderhurst,  for  some 
reason  best  known  to  himself,  did  not  finish 
his.  For  a  few  seconds  he  stared  at  the 
table-cloth,  then  he  pushed  aside  his  nearly 
disposed-of  cutlet,  then  he  got  up  from  his 
chair  quietly. 

"  Excuse  me,  Maria,"  he  said,  and  with- 
out further  ado  went  out  of  the  room,  and 
walked  toward  the  stables. 

There    was    excellent    fish    at   Maundell ; 
Batch  produced  it  at  once,  fresh,  sound,  and 
desirable.      Had    she    been    in    her    normal 
[164] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
spirits,  Emily  would  have  rejoiced  at  the 
sight  of  it,  and  have  retraced  her  four  miles 
to  Mallowe  in  absolute  jubilation.  She 
would  have  shortened  and  beguiled  her  re- 
turn journey  by  depicting  to  herself  Lady 
Maria's  pleasure  and  relief. 

But  the  letter  from  Mrs.  Cupp  lay  like  a 
weight  of  lead  in  her  pocket.  It  had  given 
her  such  things  to  think  of  as  she  walked 
that  she  had  been  oblivious  to  heather  and 
bees  and  fleece-bedecked  summer-blue  sky, 
and  had  felt  more  tired  than  in  any  tramp 
through  London  streets  that  she  could  call  to 
mind.  Each  step  she  took  seemed  to  be 
carrying  her  farther  away  from  the  few 
square  yards  of  home  the  bed-sitting-room 
had  represented  under  the  dominion  of  the 
Cupps.  Every  moment  she  recalled  more 
strongly  that  it  had  been  home  —  home.  Of 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
course  it  had  not  been  the  third-floor  back 
room  so  much  as  it  had  been  the  Cupps  who 
made  it  so,  who  had  regarded  her  as  a  sort 
of  possession,  who  had  liked  to  serve  her, 
and  had  done  it  with  actual  affection. 

"  I  shall  have  to  find  a  new  place,"  she 
kept  saying.  "I  shall  have  to  go  among 
quite  strange  people." 

She  had  suddenly  a  new  sense  of  being 
without  resource.  That  was  one  of  the 
proofs  of  the  curious  heaviness  of  the  blow 
the  simple  occurrence  was  to  her.  She  felt 
temporarily  almost  as  if  there  were  no  other 
lodging-houses  in  London,  though  she  knew 
that  really  there  were  tens  of  thousands. 
The  fact  was  that  though  there  might  be 
other  Cupps,  or  their  counterparts,  she  could 
not  make  herself  believe  such  a  good  thing 
possible.  She  had  been  physically  worn  out 
['66] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
before  she  had  read  the  letter,  and  its  effect 
had  been  proportionate  to  her  fatigue  and 
lack  of  power  to  rebound.  She  was  vaguely 
surprised  to  feel  that  the  tears  kept  filling 
her  eyes  and  falling  on  her  cheeks  in  big 
heavy  drops.  She  was  obliged  to  use  her 
handkerchief  frequently,  as  if  she  was  sud- 
denly developing  a  cold  in  her  head. 

"  I  must  take  care,"  she  said  once,  quite 
prosaically,  but  with  more  pathos  in  her 
voice  than  she  was  aware  of,  "or  I  shall 
make  my  nose  quite  red." 

Though  Batch  was  able  to  supply  fish, 
he  was  unfortunately  not  able  to  send  it  to 
Mallowe.  His  cart  had  gone  out  on  a  round 
just  before  Miss  Fox-Seton's  arrival,  and 
there  was  no  knowing  when  it  would  return. 

"  Then  I  must  carry  the  fish  myself,"  said 
Emily.     "  You  can  put  it  in  a  neat  basket." 
[167] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

"  I  'm  very  sorry,  miss ;  I  am,  indeed, 
miss,"  said  Batch,  looking  hot  and  pained. 

"  It  will  not  be  heavy,"  returned  Emily ; 
"and  her  ladyship  must  be  sure  of  it  for 
the  dinner-party." 

So  she  turned  back  to  recross  the  moor 
with  a  basket  of  fish  on  her  arm.  And  she 
was  so  pathetically  unhappy  that  she  felt  that 
so  long  as  she  lived  the  odour  of  fresh  fish 
would  make  her  feel  sorrowful.  She  had 
heard  of  people  who  were  made  sorrowful  by 
the  odour  of  a  flower  or  the  sound  ••  of  a 
melody,  but  in  her  case  it  would  be  the  smell 
of  fresh  fish  that  would  make  her  sad.  If 
she  had  been  a  person  with  a  sense  of 
humour,  she  might  have  seen  that  this  was 
thing  to  laugh  at  a  little.  But  she  was  not 
a  humorous  woman,  and  just  now  — 

"  Oh,  I  shall  have  to  find  a  new  place," 
L'68] 


The  Marquis  of  Walderhurst 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
she  was  thinking,  «  and  I  have  lived  in  that 
little  room  for  years." 

The  sun  got  hotter  and  hotter,  and  her 
feet  became  so  tired  that  she  could  scarcely 
drag  one  of  them  after  another.  She  had 
forgotten  that  she  had  left  Mallowe  before 
lunch,  and  that  she  ought  to  have  got  a  cup 
of  tea,  at  least,  at  Maundell.  Before  she  had 
walked  a  mile  on  her  way  back,  she  realised 
that  she  was  frightfully  hungry  and  rather 
faint. 

"  There  is  not  even  a  cottage  where  I 
could  get  a  glass  of  water,"  she  thought. 

The  basket,  which  was  really  compara- 
tively light,  began  to  feel  heavy  on  her  arm, 
and  at  length  she  felt  sure  that  a  certain 
burning  spot  on  her  left  heel  must  be  a  blis- 
ter which  was  being  rubbed  by  her  shoe. 
How  it  hurt  her,  and  how  tired  she  was  — 
[169] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
how  tired  !  And  when  she  left  Mallowe  — 
lovely,  luxurious  Mallowe  —  she  would  not 
go  back  to  her  little  room  all  fresh  from  the 
Cupps*  autumn  house-cleaning,  which  in- 
cluded the  washing  and  ironing  of  her  Tur- 
key-red hangings  and  chair-covers  ;  she 
would  be  obliged  to  huddle  into  any  poor 
place  she  could  find.  And  Mrs.  Cupp  and 
Jane  would  be  in  Chichester. 

vt  But  what  good  fortune  it  is  for  them  !  " 
she  murmured.  "  They  need  never  be  anx- 
ious about  the  future  again.  How  —  how 
wonderful  it  must  be  to  know  that  one  need 
not  be  afraid  of  the  future  !  I  —  indeed,  I 
think  I  really  must  sit  down." 

She  sat  down  upon  the  sun-warmed 
heather  and  actually  let  her  tear-wet  face 
drop  upon  her  hands. 

"  Oh,  dear  !    Oh,  dear  !     Oh,  dear  ! "  she 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
said  helplessly.  "  I  must  not  let  myself  do 
this.  I  must  n't.  Oh,  dear  !  Oh,  dear  !  Oh, 
dear!" 

She  was  so  overpowered  by  her  sense  of 
her  own  weakness  that  she  was  conscious  of 
nothing  but  the  fact  that  she  must  control  it. 
Upon  the  elastic  moorland  road  wheels  stole 
upon  one  without  sound.  So  the  wheels  of 
a  rapidly  driven  high  cart  approached  her 
and  were  almost  at  her  side  before  she  lifted 
her  head,  startled  by  a  sudden  consciousness 
that  a  vehicle  was  near  her. 

It  was  Lord  Walderhurst's  cart,  and  even 
as  she  gazed  at  him  with  alarmed  wet  eyes, 
his  lordship  descended  from  it  and  made  a 
sign  to  his  groom,  who  at  once  impassively 
drove  on. 

Emily's  lips  tried  to  tremble  into  a  smile  ; 
she  put  out  her  hand  fumblingly  toward  the 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
fish-basket,  and  having  secured  it,  began  to 
rise. 

"I  —  sat  down  to  rest,"  she  faltered,  even 
apologetically.  "  I  walked  to  Maundell,  and 
it  was  so  hot." 

Just  at  that  moment  a  little  breeze  sprang 
up  and  swept  across  her  cheek.  She  was 
so  grateful  that  her  smile  became  less  diffi- 
cult. 

"  I  got  what  Lady  Maria  wanted,"  she 
added,  and  the  childlike  dimple  in  her  cheek 
endeavoured  to  defy  her  eyes. 

The  Marquis  of  Walderhurst  looked 
rather  odd.  Emily  had  never  seen  him 
look  like  this  before.  He  took  a  silver 
flask  out  of  his  pocket  in  a  matter-of-fact 
way,  and  filled  its  cup  with  something. 

"  That  is  sherry,"  he  said.     "  Please  drink 
it.     You  are  absolutely  faint." 
E«7»] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

She  held  out  her  hand  eagerly.  She  could 
not  help  it. 

"  Oh,  thank  you  — thank  you  !  "  she  said. 
"  I  am  so  thirsty  !  "  And  she  drank  it  as  if 
it  were  the  nectar  of  the  gods. 

"Now,  Miss  Fox-Seton,"  he  said,  "please 
sit  down  again.  I  came  here  to  drive  you 
back  to  Mallowe,  and  the  cart  will  not  come 
back  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour." 

"  You  came  on  purpose  !  "  she  exclaimed, 
feeling,  in  truth,  somewhat  awe-struck. 
"  But  how  kind  of  you,  Lord  Walderhurst 
—  how  good !  " 

It  was  the  most  unforeseen  and  amazing 
experience  of  her  life,  and  at  once  she 
sought  for  some  reason  which  could  connect 
with  his  coming  some  more  interesting 
person  than  mere  Emily  Fox-Seton.  Oh, — 
the  thought  flashed  upon  her,  —  he  had 
E'73] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
come  for  some  reason  connected  with  Lady 
Agatha. 

He  made  her  sit  down  on  the  heather 
again,  and  he  took  a  seat  beside  her.  He 
looked  straight  into  her  eyes. 

"  You  have  been  crying,"  he  remarked. 

There  was  no  use  denying  it.  And  what 
was  there  in  the  good  gray-brown  eye,  gaz- 
ing through  the  monocle,  which  so  moved 
her  by  its  suggestion  of  kindness  and  —  and 
some  new  feeling  ? 

"  Yes,  I  have, "  she  admitted.  "  I  don't 
often  —  but  —  well,  yes,  I  have." 

"  What  was  it  ?  " 

It  was  the  most  extraordinary  thump  her 
heart  gave  at  this  moment.  She  had  never 
felt  such  an  absolute  thump.  It  was  per- 
haps because  she  was  tired.  His  voice  had 
lowered  itself.  No  man  had  ever  spoken  to 
[174] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
her  before  like  that.  It  made  one  feel  as  if 
he  was  not  an  exalted  person  at  all ;  only  a 
kind,  kind  one.  She  must  not  presume  upon 
his  kindness  and  make  much  of  her  prosaic 
troubles. 

She  tried  to  smile  in  a  proper  casual  way. 

"  Oh,  it  was  a  small  thing,  really,"  was 
her  effort  at  treating  the  matter  lightly;  "but 
it  seems  more  important  to  me  than  it  would 
to  any  one  with  —  with  a  family.  The  people 
I  live  with  —  who  have  been  so  kind  to  me  — 
are  going  away." 

"  The  Cupps  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  turned  quite  round  to  look  at  him. 

"  How,"  she  faltered, "  did  you  know  about 
them  ?  " 

"  Maria  told  me,"  he  answered.  "  I  asked 
her." 

It  seemed  such  a  human  sort  of  interest 
['75] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
to  have  taken  in  her.  She  could  not  under- 
stand. And  she  had  thought  he  scarcely 
realised  her  existence.  She  said  to  herself 
that  was  so  often  the  case  —  people  were  so 
much  kinder  than  one  knew. 

She  felt  the  moisture  welling  in  her  eyes, 
and  stared  steadily  at  the  heather,  trying  to 
wink  it  away. 

u  I  am  really  glad,"  she  explained  hastily. 
"  It  is  such  good  fortune  for  them.  Mrs. 
Cupp's  brother  has  offered  them  such  a 
nice  home.  They  need  never  be  anxious 
again." 

"But  they  will  leave  Mortimer  Street 
—  and  you  will  have  to  give  up  your 
room." 

"Yes.  I  must  find  another."  A  big 
drop  got  the  better  of  her,  and  flashed  on  its 
way  down  her  cheek.  "  I  can  find  a  room, 
[176] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
perhaps,  but — I  can't  find  —  "  She  was 
obliged  to  clear  her  throat. 

"  That  was  why  you  cried  ?  " 

"  Yes."     After  which  she  sat  still. 

"  You  don't  know  where  you  will 
live  ?  " 

"  No." 

She  was  looking  so  straight  before  her  and 
trying  so  hard  to  behave  discreetly  that  she 
did  not  see  that  he  had  drawn  nearer  to  her. 
But  a  moment  later  she  realised  it,  because 
he  took  hold  of  her  hand.  His  own  closed 
over  it  firmly. 

"  Will  you,"  he  said  —  "I  came  here, 
in  fact,  to  ask  you  if  you  will  come  and  live 
with  me  ?  " 

Her  heart  stood  still,  quite  still.  London 
was  so  full  of  ugly  stories  about  things  done 
by  men  of  his  rank — stories  of  transgres- 

12  [I77] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
sions,  of  follies,  of  cruelties.  So  many  were 
open  secrets.  There  were  men  who,  even 
while  keeping  up  an  outward  aspect  of  re- 
spectability, were  held  accountable  for  pain- 
ful things.  The  lives  of  well-born  strug- 
gling women  were  so  hard.  Sometimes 
such  nice  ones  went  under  because  tempta- 
tion was  so  great.  But  she  had  not  thought, 
she  could  not  have  dreamed  — • 

She  got  on  her  feet  and  stood  upright  be- 
fore him.  He  rose  with  her,  and  because 
she  was  a  tall  woman  their  eyes  were  on  a 
level.  Her  own  big  and  honest  ones  were 
wide  and  full  of  crystal  tears. 

"  Oh  !  "  she  said  in  helpless  woe.    "  Oh ! " 

It  was  perhaps  the  most  effective  thing  a 

woman   ever  did.     It  was  so  simple  that  it 

was    heartbreaking.       She    could    not    have 

uttered  a  word,  he  was  such  a  powerful  and 

['78] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
great  person,  and  she  was  so  without  help 
or  stay. 

Since  the  occurring  of  this  incident,  she 
has  often  been  spoken  of  as  a  beauty,  and 
she  has,  without  doubt,  had  her  fine  hours ; 
but  Walderhurst  has  never  told  her  that 
the  most  beautiful  moment  of  her  life  was 
undoubtedly  that  in  which  she  stood  upon 
the  heather,  tall  and  straight  and  simple, 
her  hands  hanging  by  her  sides,  her  large, 
tear-filled  hazel  eyes  gazing  straight  into 
his.  In  the  femininity  of  her  frank  defence- 
lessness  there  was  an  appeal  to  nature's 
self  in  man  which  was  not  quite  of  earth. 
And  for  several  seconds  they  stood  so  and 
gazed  into  each  other's  souls  —  the  usually 
unilluminated  nobleman  and  the  prosaic  young 
woman  who  lodged  on  a  third  floor  back  in 
Mortimer  Street. 

C'79] 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

Then,  quite  quickly,  something  was 
lighted  in  his  eyes,  and  he  took  a  step 
toward  her. 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  he  demanded.  "  What 
do  you  suppose  I  am  asking  of  you  ?  " 

"  I  don't  —  know,"  she  answered  ;  "  I 
don't  —  know." 

"  My  good  girl,"  he  said,  even  with  some 
irritation,  "  I  am  asking  you  to  be  my  wife. 
I  am  asking  you  to  come  and  live  with  me 
in  an  entirely  respectable  manner,  as  the 
Marchioness  of  Walderhurst." 

Emily  touched  the  breast  of  her  brown 
linen  blouse  with  the  tips  of  her  fingers. 

"  You  —  are  —  asking  —  me  ?  "  she  said. 

"Yes,"    he    answered.       His    glass    had 

dropped  out   of   his   eye,   and   he   picked    it 

up  and  replaced  it.     "  There  is  Black  with 

the  cart,"  he  said.     u  I  will  explain  myself 

[180] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
with  greater  clearness  as  we  drive  back  to 
Mallowe." 

The  basket  of  fish  was  put  in  the  cart, 
and  Emily  Fox-Seton  was  put  in.  Then 
the  marquis  got  in  himself,  and  took  the 
reins  from  his  groom. 

"You  will  walk  back,  Black,"  he  said, 
"by  that  path,"  with  a  wave  of  the  hand 
in  a  diverging  direction. 

As  they  drove  across  the  heather,  Emily 
was  trembling  softly  from  head  to  foot.  She 
could  have  told  no  human  being  what 
she  felt.  Only  a  woman  who  had  lived 
as  she  had  lived  and  who  had  been  trained 
as  she  had  been  trained  could  have  felt  it. 
The  brilliance  of  the  thing  which  had  hap- 
pened to  her  was  so  unheard  of  and  so 
undeserved,  she  told  herself.  It  was  so 
[181] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
incredible  that,  even  with  the  splendid  gray 
mare's  high-held  head  before  her  and  Lord 
Walderhurst  by  her  side,  she  felt  that  she 
was  only  part  of  a  dream.  Men  had  never 
said  "things"  to  her,  and  a  man  was  say- 
ing them  — the  Marquis  of  Walderhurst  was 
saying  them.  They  were  not  the  kind  of 
things  every  man  says  or  said  in  every  man's 
way,  but  they  so  moved  her  soul  that  she 
quaked  with  joy. 

"  I  am  not  a  marrying  man,"  said  his 
lordship,  "but  I  must  marry,  and  I  like  you 
better  than  any  woman  I  have  ever  known. 
I  do  not  generally  like  women.  1  am  a 
selfish  man,  and  I  want  an  unselfish  woman. 
Most  women  are  as  selfish  as  I  am  myself. 
I  used  to  like  you  when  I  heard  Maria  speak 
of  you.  I  have  watched  you  and  thought 
of  you  ever  since  I  came  here.  You  are 
[182] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
necessary  to  every  one,  and  you  are  so 
modest  that  you  know  nothing  about  it. 
You  are  a  handsome  woman,  and  you  are 
always  thinking  of  other  women's  good 
looks." 

Emily  gave  a  soft  little  gasp. 

"  But  Lady  Agatha,"  she  said.  "  I  was 
sure  it  was  Lady  Agatha." 

"  I  don't  want  a  girl,"  returned  his  lord- 
ship. "  A  girl  would  bore  me  to  death. 
I  am  not  going  to  dry-nurse  a  girl  at 
the  age  of  fifty-four.  I  want  a  com- 
panion." 

"  But  I  am  so  far  from  clever,"  faltered 
Emily. 

The    marquis  turned    in    his  driving-seat 
to  look   at  her.     It  was  really  a  very  nice 
look  he  gave  her.     It  made  Emily's  cheeks 
grow  pink  and  her  simple  heart  beat. 
['83j 


THE   MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
"  You  are  the  woman  I  want,"  he  said. 
"  You  make  me  feel  quite  sentimental." 

When  they  reached  Mallowe,  Emily  had 
upon  her  finger  the  ruby  which  Lady  Maria 
had  graphically  described  as  being  "  as  big 
as  a  trouser  button."  It  was,  indeed,  so 
big  that  she  could  scarcely  wear  her  glove 
over  it.  She  was  still  incredible,  but  she 
was  blooming  like  a  large  rose.  Lord  Wal- 
derhurst  had  said  so  many  "  things  "  to  her 
that  she  seemed  to  behold  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth.  She  had  been  so  swept  off 
her  feet  that  she  had  not  really  been  allowed 
time  to  think,  after  that  first  gasp,  of  Lady 
Agatha. 

When  she  reached    her   bedroom   she  al- 
most returned  to   earth  as  she   remembered 
it.     Neither  of  them   had   dreamed  of  this 
—  neither  of  them.     What  could  she  say  to 
[184] 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
Lady  Agatha?  What  would  Lady  Agatha 
say  to  her,  though  it  had  not  been  her  fault  ? 
She  had  not  dreamed  that  such  a  thing  could 
be  possible.  How  could  &he,  oh,  how  could 
she? 

She  was  standing  in  the  middle  of  her 
room  with  clasped  hands.  There  was  a 
knock  upon  the  door,  and  Lady  Agatha 
herself  came  to  her. 

What  had  occurred  ?  Something.  It 
was  to  be  seen  in  the  girl's  eyes,  and  in  a 
certain  delicate  shyness  in  her  manner. 

"  Something  very  nice  has  happened,"  she 
said. 

"  Something  nice  ?  "  repeated  Emily. 

Lady  Agatha  sat  down.  The  letter  from 
Curzon  Street  was  in  her  hand  half  unfolded. 

"I  have  had  a  letter  from  mamma.  It 
seems  almost  bad  taste  to  speak  of  it  so 


THE  MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 
soon,  but  we  have  talked  to  each  other  so 
much,  and  you  are  so  kind,  that  I  want  to 
tell  you  myself.  Sir  Bruce  Norman  has 
been  to  talk  to  papa  about  —  about  me." 

Emily  felt  that  her  cup  filled  to  the  brim 
at  the  moment. 

"  He  is  in  England  again  ?  " 

Agatha  nodded  gently. 

"  He  only  went  away  to  —  well,  to  test 
his  own  feelings  before  he  spoke.  Mamma 
is  delighted  with  him.  I  am  going  home 
to-morrow." 

Emily  made  a  little  swoop  forward. 

u  You  always  liked  him  ?  "  she  said. 

Lady  Agatha's  delicate  mounting  colour 
was  adorable. 

"  I  was  quite  unhappy"  she  owned,  and 
hid  her  lovely  face  in  her  hands. 


THE    MAKING  of  a  MARCHIONESS 

In  the  morning-room  Lord  Walderhurst 
was  talking  to  Lady  Maria. 

u  You  need  not  give  Emily  Fox-Seton  any 
more  clothes,  Maria,"  he  said.  "  I  am  go- 
ing to  supply  her  in  future.  I  have  asked 
her  to  marry  me." 

Lady  Maria  lightly  gasped,  and  then  began 
to  laugh. 

"  Well,  James,"  she  said,  "  you  have  cer- 
tainly much  more  sense  than  most  men  of 
your  rank  and  age." 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  LOS  ANGELES 


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Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. - 

"hone  Renewals  C 
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